NEW ORLEANS — It was a frightening few moments for New Orleans District Attorney Jason Williams and his 78-year-old mother.
You can hear him on a security camera video, pleading with armed carjackers to let him get his mother out of the vehicle before they took it.
“Get out of the car, mama, let me get my mom out of the car,” Williams told the men.
Williams was walking his mother to his black Lincoln Navigator to drive her home.
She was already in the passenger seat when two masked gunmen approached him, demanding that he give up the vehicle.
Williams, who has personally prosecuted some of the city’s most violent crimes, found himself staring down the barrel of a gun.
“They kept repeating get out of the car, get out of the car,” Williams said. “I said okay, put my hands up, two guns, I’m not going to fight anybody. But I said I can’t until I get my mom out of the car.”
Williams called 911 once they were a safe distance away from the carjackers.
“Right now, I’m just glad to be in the land of the living,” Williams told WWL-TV. “I’m glad that nobody squeezed the trigger last night. I’m glad my mother was able to get out of that car and that she’s okay.”
The crime happened on Monday night, just after 10, near the corner of Magazine and Race Streets.
Police found Williams SUV later in Uptown.
Williams didn’t give specifics but said the carjackers took things from the vehicle.
Lower Garden District residents said while it has been safer lately in their neighborhood, unfortunately crimes like this still happen.
“I live right next door to where it happened,” Walker Babington said. “I’ve got a six-year-old. I just got back from bringing her to school and the night before he got carjacked, we were coming back, right around the same time.”
“Getting out of your car, what are you going to do,” asked Glenn Mosley. “You kind of look around. You don’t want to live in fear, but at the same time, you have to be a little smarter about what you do.”
Police say Williams’ carjacking may be connected to a second one about 30 minutes later in the 1800 block of Baronne Street, about a half a mile away.
In that case, two gunmen approached a 22-year-old woman, demanded her keys and took off in her white Honda Civic.
Williams said he is truly blessed nobody was hurt or worse.
“Whether the car was found or not, whether the car was wrecked or not, that’s not important, but my five-year-old growing up without his dad, that would be a big deal. My 17-year-old going off to college without me in his life. That would be a big deal. Not seeing what my 23-year-old, if all her phenomenal dreams that she’s got planned for the next several years, if I did not get to see that. That’s what’s important.”
Williams warns his carjacking is an indication this can happen to anybody, and nobody is immune from crime.
As of late Tuesday afternoon, the carjacking suspects were still on the run.
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