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Crime News Breaking News

Dallas Mom Stops Carjacking By Shooting Suspect In The Face, Cops Say

Michelle Booker-Hicks' young sons, 2 and 4, were in the vehicle at the time.

By Jill Sederstrom

A Dallas mom shot a man in the face to stop him from stealing her car while her two young children were still inside, cops say.

Michelle Booker-Hicks parked her SUV at a Shell gas station and went inside at about 10 p.m. on July 4, leaving her two sons, ages 2 and 4, in the backseat. When an employee notified her that someone was trying to steal her vehicle, Booker-Hicks ran out to it and jumped in the passenger's side, according to NBC 5.

"I seen my two babies still back there," she told the local news station. "I'm asking the man, 'hey, my kids are back here. Stop! Pull over! Pull over!"

Booker-Hicks' two kids were in the backseat of the vehicle through it all, Fox 4 reported.

When the man — later identified by the Dallas Police Department as 36-year-old Ricky Wright (pictured above) — refused to stop the SUV, Booker-Hicks grabbed a gun from her glove compartment and shot the man in the face, police said.

"I wasn't necessarily worried about my car," she told Fox 4. "I was more worried about my kids."

The car then crashed into a telephone pole, Diana V. Browning, public information officer for the Dallas Police Department, told Oxygen.com.

Booker-Hicks told reporters that she meant to fire the shot as a warning, but also told Fox 4 she believed "in defending what's mine." She had recently purchased the gun for protection.

"Just to see him slumped over like I was just like, Lord, my kids [are] in the car. They done seen me shoot somebody," she told NBC 5 after the shooting.

Wright was taken to the hospital to be treated for his injuries. According to police he is in serious but stable condition, and faces two counts of unlawful restraint and unauthorized use of a motor vehicle.

He's also had past run-ins with the law. According to Fox 4, he's had previous charges of assault, arson, theft, making a terroristic threat, resisting arrest and drug-related charges.

Booker-Hicks is not facing charges in the incident, according to Dallas News. She and her children were unharmed.

[Photo: Dallas County Sheriff's Department]

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