CHARLOTTE — An 80-year-old man was carjacked at gunpoint Monday outside of his apartment on Waterford Tide Loop near Johnston Road and Highway 51 in south Charlotte.
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Ronald Conroy said he went out to his car around 4 p.m. to go to a car wash. He thinks the carjacker was looking for someone vulnerable to rob.
Conroy, who is an ex-Marine, said he stayed calm when the assailant approached him.
“I turned around and this young man, young black man, was, like, five feet from me, and he had a 9-millimeter in his hand,” Conroy said. “He said, 'Sorry sir, I'm going to take your car.' I said, ‘Take it.’”
Conroy said he wasn’t afraid, and it was an easy decision to give the gunman what he wanted.
There were no surveillance cameras in the parking lot in an area that doesn’t have many brazen crimes like a carjacking.
“It's not something we see a lot down here in south (Charlotte),” said Capt. Christian Wagner, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department.
Wagner said there will be more patrols at the apartment complex and others that are nearby
“The victim's vehicle, if it's out there, we're looking for it,” Wagner said.
Police said Conroy did the right thing by not fighting back.
“It could’ve been worse,” Conroy said.
The investigation is ongoing.
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