A close call for one Burlington woman as bullets were flying right outside her front door. One man was shot and she was sent to the hospital with injuries from a gunshot of her own.
The shooting happened in the 1000 block of 10th Street just after 3 o'clock Sunday. A 25-year old man was hit in the leg and flown to Iowa City.
Police have arrested 37-year old Jermaine Carr. He is charged with willful injury and intimidation with a dangerous weapon - both felonies. He is in the Des Moines County jail and is scheduled to be in court Monday morning.
"Is this for real? You only see this on TV, you don't see it in real life. It was scary thought," said Vicki Watson. At around 3 p.m. Sunday she had just stepped out her door when she heard a loud pop.
"It was like the backfire of a car," said Watson. She says she saw two men in her yard, one after the other with gun in hand.
"I heard the gun, seen the guy, and ran back in my house. I ran in the house because that's your first instinct, run in the house because I figured it's safe."
Watson didn't think she would be followed. "The guy that got shot was coming this way. The guy with the gun was running all the way up there to shoot him again."
That's when she found herself right in the middle of something really bad. The gunshot victim made it to her door. That's when Watson says the shooter fired again. The bullet blew a hole through her screen door. "When it hit the screen door you could hear the pieces of the plastic popping off."
"I seen all this blood and I'm like, he got shot," said Watson. But some of the blood was hers. She sustained an injury to her right thigh. "I pulled my pants down and looked and all I could see was gushing out."
Along with the man that was hit, responders rushed Watson to the hospital. Doctors called her injury a gunshot wound. They told her it could be bullet fragments or pieces from where the door was hit that are lodged in her muscle tissue.
Back home tonight, Watson says the shooting spread a lot of unwanted excitement through the neighborhood. "It's quiet. You can sit out in your yard and everything no problems."
But for her it's something about as close to home as it gets. "Real close call, very scary."
As for the man who was shot, officials are not yet releasing his identity or condition.
Jermaine Laevelle Carr
