“I had to do what God gave me the strength to do: Defend myself.” — Martina Carter (Photo: Chicago Tribune)
A Chicago woman survived an attempted murder last week, but she didn’t let the perpetrator get away unharmed.
After wrestling the suspect to the ground, Martina Carter, 54, shot the much younger man in the hand with his own firearm.
“I had to do what God gave me the strength to do: Defend myself,” she told the Chicago Tribune.
Carter’s strength soon began to wane, and Dennis Evans, the 23-year-old would-be robber, retrieved his gun and pointed it at Carter.
“(Expletive), you shot me with my own gun,” Evans said, according to the police report. “Now I’m gonna shoot your (expletive).”
Carter lay on the ground near her South Side bus stop. People had noticed the altercation, but no one had the courage to step in.
“I thought, ‘This is it,’ ” she recalled. “I thought, ‘I’m saying goodbye to my kids.’”
But when Evans pulled the trigger… click.
“I was shocked that it didn’t go off again,” she told the Tribune a day after the attack. “It was the Lord — that’s what it was.”
Evans didn’t stop to clear the jam in his gun. He fled, and police arrested him later that day where he lives with his mom and two sisters.
Carter told the Tribune that Evans had accosted her at the bus stop and demanded her purse and bag at gunpoint. Even before he pulled out a gun she thought he was drunk or mentally ill.
“The minute he pulled it out, he cocked it. And I thought, ‘I have to think of something,’” she said.
She called for help, but no one came, so she decided to take matters into her own hands. She grabbed the gun and managed to take control of it momentarily.
“That’s when I closed my eyes and just pressed the button,” she said, describing the trigger.
She shot Evans in his left hand, but the wound wasn’t serious enough to make him stop his attack. He recovered his gun but, fortunately for Carter, it didn’t fire.
The Tribune called the gun a “blue steel 9 mm” and said police found six rounds of live ammunition in the gun after the incident. Carter says that Evans “cocked” the gun, which might indicate he was carrying a revolver. But the round count disqualifies the majority of revolvers, and it’s almost impossible for revolvers to “jam.”
The most likely explanation is that Evans was carrying a semi-automatic steel-framed handgun that failed to go back into battery after Carter shot Evans’ hand at close range. The empty case may have also jammed the gun or the round may have been a dud.
Evans has been charged with attempted murder and attempted robbery. He is being held without bail.
Very brave and courageous. Well done, an inspiration to us all.
Thank God she’s doing well.
Lady – you need to shoot him in the face or the chest – or BOTH! Do NOT count on “God to save you” after you just shoot him in the hand!
Not everyone can be a Lazy-Boy sicarrio.
Bless your heart, Martina. You didn’t just stand by and be victimized, but fought back. I’m honestly surprised that Chicago didn’t somehow try to charge you for harming the poor, misunderstood criminal.
Had a revolver jam once. Bad reload, bullet hit frame not letting cylinder rotate. Poor reload
If Obama had a son, guess who he would look like?
Excellent point.
Really! that’s all you have to say. Something negative instead of life lifting. How do you even know what race that this person was. I know. You made an assumption because the victim was black. So if this kid was white; would his law breaking ass look like you? So tired of internet crazies.
Would you care to make a wager on that, snowflake?
His parents.
“…..People had noticed the altercation, but no one had the courage to step in.”
Chicago; that figures.
That is where the shame is, no one stopped to help, just set and watched and probably tweeted it on their phones.
It does not matter what color, race, nationality or religion you are, your going to have good and bad people. The crime is when good men and women stand by while others are harmed. You may get hurt, sued or killed, but eventually we all have to stand by our principals. I am not saying to vigilante out and go look for trouble, in this country, making a difference can be as little as talking to a kid before they go wrong or helping people in any way you can. Just opening a door for someone may give them the idea that other people are worth helping and it gets passed on.
I don’t want to see people killed or hurt for butting in, but the people of America have got to go back to the idea that we are in this all together, not 320 million individuals only out for themselves.
What happens when you have a population of unarmed sheep
If the criminal douchetard bought or bartered for it then it was probably a cheap junker. If he stole it then who knows what quality it may have been. Even quality guns fail when they are stored and maintained by douchetards (do criminal douchetards maintain guns?) or when they get scuffled with. Since this lucky lady uses terms like “push the button” in place of “pulled the trigger” I think “he cocked it” could just as easily also have meant “he racked it” which opens up a whole lot more options of gun types too.
A 9 mm llama? Of all the guns out there you picked one of the rarest guns around? Are you sure you did not supply that firearm ?? Lol 👀🔫🙈
God is good ! I was once robed at gun point at a Chicago bus stop. I still remember the guys face to this day and it happened almost fifty years ago. I did as the gunman asked, he escaped with my money and I with my life. Bus stops are prime targets for thugs to get a few bucks to feed their drug habits
Being that this happened in Chicago, I wonder if they’ll charge her and arrest her for firing a gun? 😉
Illegal discharge of a firearm within the city limits. Very possible.
Interesting how Chicago Lame Stream Fake News has buried this story on the back pages. They don’t like self-defense stories here.
Shootings are so commonplace in Chicago that this would not be very newsworthy.
Because she is an inexperienced shooter, she probably limp wristed it and caused a malfunction of some sort. Lucky for her, it probably saved her life.
about every steel frame semiauto has a hammer. you thumb the hammer back to cock it…
probably a 9mm Llama. I’d bet money on that, odds are good.
Just curious, what would make you think of all guns out there, that it would be a 9 mm llama? I own a 1963 llama 380 . They are rare guns . Why would you bet money that it is a llama?