A truck driver says he is thankful to be alive after a homeless man threatened him with a shank and stole his truck in Nashville on Tuesday afternoon.
The incident happened on March 8th in South Nashville, Tennessee at around 2 p.m.
According to WKRN News, 33-year-old truck driver Ahmed Ahmed pulled into an empty church parking lot and parked so he could have lunch at a nearby restaurant. As he was preparing to head off to lunch, the pastor of the church approached Ahmed to discuss his parking in the lot, and that’s when a homeless man who had gotten aggressive with the pastor a short time earlier approached the tanker truck and turned his aggression towards Ahmed.
Pastor Stone says that the 38-year-old homeless man, Jacques Dubois, tried to jump up into the cab of the truck wielding some sort of shank, knife, or box cutter.
“Suddenly I just see my doors open and I see the knife,” Ahmed said.
“They start fist fighting with half of his [Dubois] body hanging out of the semi. So he [Dubois] jumps out of the truck, pulls out his homemade shank and runs around the other side of the truck, and opens the door and starts trying to stab the driver. So the driver dives head first out the passenger side window of his truck,” Stone recalled.
“And [Dubois] runs back around and I try and stop him and he says, ‘If I don’t see you in this life or the next one I’ll see you again, be blessed.’ He jumps in the semi, drives off across the curb. He hits the power pole knocking the wheels off the semi. Fortunately the driver is alright. I wait with him until paramedics show up. I felt sorry for him; he was just here trying to get lunch,” Stone continued.
Dubois then drove the truck down a dead end road about a mile from the church and got stuck in a roadside ditch. Officer promptly arrived at the scene and took Dubois into custody.
Ahmed says that fighting with a man wielding a weapon while inside the cab of his truck was a terrifying experience that made him think of his children back home.
“The first thing I was thinking is my life. The second thing I have in my mind is for my kids. What is going to happen to them?” he said.
Pastor Stone says that he has had encounters with Dubois and other homeless people on the church’s property in the past, but never anything quite like this. Ahmed is expected to be okay, but has since returned to the hospital on suspicions of a broken rib.
Dubois is now being charged with several moving violations and aggravated robbery. He already possesses a criminal history, including assaults and sexual exploitation of a child. He is currently being held in the Davidson County Jail on $77,000 bond.