A purse-snatching at the Lakewood Whole Foods Wednesday turned into a major local news event after a Dallas ISD officer shot at the suspect, who got away.
It turns out that the robbery victim was Mariana Greene, a former Dallas Morning News editor who lives in Swiss Avenue Historic District and is married to Dallas Observer columnist Jim Schutze.
Here is her account of what happened:
A nice-looking young man stalked me, evidently, as I pushed my cart to my car and loaded my groceries. My purse was in the seat of the cart. He lunged for my purse from the driver’s seat. I fought him for my purse and screamed NO repeatedly but he wrenched it away from me and drove off. A DISD policeman happened to be arriving and tried to block the thief with his car but the thief just hit the DISD vehicle — whereupon the school cop fired two shots at him — and a parked SUV and turned left onto Gaston toward Garland Road. My phone was in my purse.
Jim would not answer phone calls from multiple unknown callers, so finally a young man, a customer who was in the parking lot when the shots were fired, drove to our house to get Jim. Other strangers clustered around to hug me. There were several witnesses, all of whom hit the floorboards when they heard the shots. I just stood there marveling at how quiet the gunfire was and hoped they would miraculously disable the vehicle.
I spent the rest of the day sitting inside Whole Foods with multiple policemen and, later, was taken to police headquarters for more questioning.
I am hoarse from screaming. My hand is bruised and several fingernails were torn off. Whole Foods personnel were very kind and helpful, for hours. At first we were told there were no cameras outside. It turns out there are two working cameras. So the police now have that footage.
