Indy grandmother confronts gunman with a gun of her own

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — A grandmother said she was terrified Tuesday when she found herself face-to-face with strangers pointing a gun at her. But then she scared them off when she pulled out a gun herself. 

Jonnie McIntosh said the situation was over some money the two strangers said her grandson owed them for drugs. She said she didn’t know anything about it but she did say her grandson does sometimes hang around the wrong crowd.

It happened on the 400 block of North Berwick Avenue.     

“My life was flashing before my eyes,” McIntosh said.     

A man and woman walked up to her home, demanding $20 they said her grandson owed them for drugs. They then showed a gun.     

“They threatened to shoot up the house. ‘Somebody’s going to pay her her money,’” McIntosh recalled them saying.

McIntosh said she doesn’t allow drugs in her house.    

“I went inside and grabbed the gun,” she said.     

A gun pointed at her and now McIntosh pointing a gun at these strangers.    

“You better go and you better go now,” she recalled saying to the pair.    

“It don’t matter to me I’ll shoot you,” she said the two strangers responded. 

“And I said not if I shoot you first.”         

Her gun was loaded.     

“I’m saying to myself, ‘God please don’t let him shoot it,’” she said on Wednesday.

The pair ran from her doorstep, leaving McIntosh holding her gun, something she’s owned for only six weeks.

“I don’t like guns. But the violence and the drugs and all this out here,” she said, her voice starting to trail.      

So she decided to buy one. Last year gun violence took the life of her grandson’s girlfriend and her unborn baby.    

“I got to give in to something I don’t want to,” McIntosh said.     

All she wants is peace in the streets, but she said she knows what could happen if someone threatens her with a gun.    

“I don’t know what else to do other than shoot because 911 can’t get here quick enough. I mean it just takes a split second,” McIntosh said.      

McIntosh added she’s even working to get a concealed carry license, because she said her west side neighborhood is only getting more dangerous.     

Again, something she doesn’t want to do but feels like she has to.