Little Rock,AR : Carjacking, crash cut her lifeline on July, Friday 21th 2017

Wednesday morning, life was "manageable" for Adrian Norris. Friday afternoon, the 22-year-old woman was battered, exhausted and worried about keeping a roof over her 1-year-old daughter's head.

While picking up lunch Wednesday at Chick-fil-A on West Markham Street in Little Rock, she crossed paths with a man fleeing police who pulled her out of her car and threw her to the ground.

The man then tried to escape in her 2010 Chevrolet Malibu, only to be shot by police who said he refused commands to stop and drove toward officers.

Police say the man kept driving, heading toward a bystander. The man only stopped when another driver crashed into the Malibu with his own Jeep, demolishing the car.

Shot multiple times in the arm, the robber was still hospitalized Friday. Potential charges include first-degree battery, robbery and theft, according to a police report.

Police have identified him as 22-year-old Rudy Leonard Avila, a parolee who was sentenced to seven years in prison in June 2014 on convictions for robbery, residential burglary and car break-ins. He is currently awaiting trial over a June 2015 residential burglary arrest.

The crash totaled more than Harris' car. It has severed her economic lifeline.

On Wednesday, she said she was making enough money to pay the bills for her and her daughter, including child care. She'd had the Malibu for 14 months, paying $277 a month. She and the car had already survived a May hit-and-run.

"[Life] was manageable," she said. "I could afford to take care of my child, pay my rent and have $40 to myself."

Friday, her head hurt, her back was sore from being thrown to the ground, and she can't sleep.

Her friends have talked about trying to raise money over the Internet. Harris said she's not comfortable with the idea.

"I don't know what to say," she said. "I don't know how much to ask for. I don't want to be greedy."

Harris said she's got a lot of worries now. She said she thought she might have been too harsh on police in a TV interview when she questioned why Avila was shot. She said she didn't know then what he had been doing, saying she had only glimpsed him briefly.

But worrying about what the loss of her car could mean, the loss of her apartment and independence, brought her to tears.

"I need my car to maintain everything," she said. "Basically, it boils down to I could lose everything in a few days."

Barely two months on the job, she was using the last of her paid time off Friday to get a copy of the police report and talk to some car dealers, trying to figure out how she's going to pay for another car. She said she was told she'd need at least $2,000.

Harris said she found out her car insurance had been canceled when she called to report the crash. She said she's missed one payment because of her recent move from Jacksonville to Little Rock that increased her insurance from $229 to $285.

She would have had the money to cover it, but she didn't know when the company was going to draft her bank account. She expected a warning by email, but it came by mail, a notice she didn't see until it was too late.



Source :
Carjacking, crash cut her lifeline, mom says