Wednesday afternoon, the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office confirmed the woman in the car with Michael Harris during a police chase through Jacksonville’s Westside was carjacked.
Harris, a suspect in two bank robberies in two days, told Tara Carter to get in the car near Firetower Road and Brannon Avenue, Carter said.
She said he demanded she drive out to 103rd Street. Neighbors say shots were fired on Nussbaum Drive.
"I'm dead, I'm dead. Bullets are flying out, bullets are flying in," Carter said. "He originally started firing out the window. When he turned that barrel to fire out my back glass, I seen down that thing, and I just seen my life. I just seen my life.
"And then when it still didn't go and they're firing back in, I'm dead. I'm dead, cause they're not biased. They're going to shoot anybody to get what they want. I'm driving. They're going to stop me to stop my car, right? Right? That's where my mind is."
The two-mile chase would continue down Buttercup Street just past Old Middleburg Road, where it ended with a crash. The car Harris and Carter were in took out a brick mailbox.
"I heard yelling. I heard gunshots. I'm staring at the cop though," Carter said. "He told me to put my hands up and don't move, I did exactly I what I was told and stared at him as he was staring at me, yelling, 'Thank you, oh freaking God, thank you.' I'm alive. Thank you. Freaking thank you. And thinking why. Why? It was hard for me not to me angry and thankful at the same time."
JSO released a photo of Officer Jeremy Mason’s windshield full of bullet holes.
“It was terrible out here, real terrible,” neighbor and witness Elissa Brown said.
From there, neighbors described a fire fight between Harris and the police.
“Gunshots and the cops saying, 'Get down. Put the gun down,' and then they started shooting,” Brown said.
Jeffrey Ashley said he also saw it all.
“One [bullet] actually came up through the yard. I saw the dirt fly up and it almost hit my car,” Ashley said. “[Harris] was out of the car, so I guess he tried to run or something but he only made to right there with them bushes and that fence right there.”
Carter said she's happy to be alive.
"I've never been so happy to kiss the ground in my life. I've never been so happy to just be alive. Still, there's times it doesn't seem real. Like, it still doesn't ... and then why me?"
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