HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — An Uber ride ended last month with the driver taking an ambulance ride.
Ezekiel Gonzales said it happened Nov. 3 after he’d dropped off a woman at an apartment complex on Bennington near Homestead in northeast Houston.
“There was nothing that really set me off to think, ‘You’re in danger, you’re in the hood, you’re in a place where you’re gonna get robbed,'” Gonzales said.
After completing the ride, Gonzales said he exited his car to relieve himself behind a garbage bin.
As he was returning to his car, he said he was approached by two men.
“He’s like, ‘Hey, what’s up? Where you from?'” Gonzalez said.
Gonzales said he barely had time to respond when the man pulled a gun and pointed it at his chest. He said a smaller man then began frisking him.
“I kind of took a step and then shoved him,” Gonzales said of the smaller man.
It caused enough of a distraction for Gonzales to take off running. He estimates he made it about 50 feet when he turned around to see the smaller man pull a gun and begin firing.
“Next thing I know, there’s a hole in my chest. Immediately, I knew I’d been shot, you know, blood on my hand,” Gonzales said.
Gonzales said the man fired twice. One of the bullets tore through his back and hit one of his lungs.
“If I had turned just one millimeter more, it would have hit my heart, and I would have died,” he said.
Gonzales said both suspects took off while bystanders swooped in to tend to his wound.
Brandon Caldwell was arrested on Monday and charged with aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon. He’s being held without bond.
The other man, who Gonzales claims pulled the trigger, remains unaccounted for.
“Honestly, I would have respected it more if he would have saw it through and robbed me,” Gonzales said. “I would have been like, ‘Okay, you’re truly a villain, you’re truly a bad guy.’ But the fact that you gave me two shells and took nothing from me, that shows me that you were really a coward.”
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