Great grandmother says she fired shots at mugger

By Ron Savage
Fox 2 News

DETROIT (WJBK) -- When a local great grandma couldn't find a good Samaritan to fight off a mugger, she went for the next best thing -- her gun.

At 11:30 Thursday morning on a bus near the University of Detroit Mercy, a guy in his early twenties attacked Ramona Taylor-Kamate.

"He said, 'Give me my bag auntie.'  I said, 'I am not your auntie, boy, and this is not your bag.'  So he hit me.  So when he hit me, we started fighting," she explained.

Taylor-Kamate said there were more men than women on that packed bus, but not one guy would help her.  She traded punches with the punk, then he grabbed her purse and ran out on the sidewalk with grandma dragging along.  She said other bus riders yelled he has a gun.

"He reached down like he was going in his boot.  They already [said] he had a gun in his boot.  So he reached down in his boot.  When he reached down, I went in my secret compartment... and got my H&K out and I started shooting at him."

She has a concealed pistol license and said she feared for her life.  She fired her 9 millimeter handgun and emptied the gun.  She said he ran away with her purse and did not appear to be hit.  She had ten rounds in her magazine and one more loaded in the chamber.  She fired all eleven shots.

No one on the sidewalk was injured.

Detroit Police responded quickly.  They interviewed grandma and the witnesses, then left the scene.

The mugger got away with some cash, her concealed pistol license and some personal items.  Police found some of those items more than a mile away.

This case is not closed.  Taylor-Kamate told me she will meet with police again in a couple of days.  They are holding her gun.  If anyone shows up at a hospital with a bullet wound they will check ballistics.

Taylor-Kamate is confident she was facing a deadly threat and believes she acted responsibly to protect herself.