Harlem gran sez blasting mugger was gut reaction
Harlem gran sez blasting mugger was gut reaction
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/451222p-379660c.html
Sick over shot
Harlem gran sez blasting mugger was gut reaction
BY VERONIKA BELENKAYA and ROBERT F. MOORE
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Margaret Johnson, who shot a mugger with he .357, travels on a wheelchair with her pooch Malika yesterday.
The pistol-packing Harlem grandma who grabbed a registered .357 magnum and blasted a mugger is a steady shot who has won awards for her marksmanship.
"I never thought I would have to use my gun on a person," said Margaret Johnson, who has at least a dozen shooting trophies in her apartment and once shot a hole in a quarter from 30 feet away.
"I feel bad, but it was his choice," Johnson, 57, said of the mugger she wounded. "I think he's stupid. I think it's really wrong to take advantage of the disabled."
Johnson, who has been confined to a wheelchair since 2001 when she suffered a dislocated hip and a herniated disk, has a permit for the handgun that allows her to keep the firearm in her home and take it to shooting ranges.
She told the Daily News she has been firing guns at the ranges for 25 years to relieve stress. But until Friday, she never had to shoot a gun anywhere else.
She was heading to a Bronx shooting range at 3 p.m. when she saw Deron Johnson, a 45-year-old ex-con, in a parking lot outside her Lenox Ave. building, police said. "I said hello to the man," recalled Margaret Johnson.
But he didn't respond. He grabbed the retired bus driver around the neck, causing her MTA medallion to pop from her necklace and fall to the ground, she said.
She pulled out her gun and shot him in the elbow, sending him running like a wounded duck. "It was a gut reaction," she said yesterday. "I was afraid. I didn't know what he was going to do. I shot him and then I called 911.
"There are people like him in the world who like to take advantage of people like me," she said. "Obviously, he didn't know me."
Deron Johnson, no relation to the victim, was tracked down by cops and arrested, police said. He was in stable condition at Harlem Hospital and charges were pending against him yesterday.
Margaret Johnson, whose son is an ex-Marine, said she doesn't feel like a hero for protecting herself.
"Actually I feel sick about the whole thing," she said. "Picking on a handicapped woman is about as low as you can go. I feel sorry for him, but it was a choice he made."