For more than seven years, James Lamb has walked home from work without a problem, but the streak was broken Tuesday in an incident captured on surveillance video.
Lamb was robbed at gunpoint just a few yards from his Oak Lawn apartment.
Surveillance video from nearby cameras shows a white sedan driving by the corner of Congress Avenue and Welborn Street. The car stops when Lamb comes around the corner, and a man immediately jumps out of the car and points a gun at Lamb's head.
"I thought he was going to ask me a question, but then I saw the gun," Lamb said. "The next thing you know, this guy's running at me with a gun pointed at me."
The man demanded Lamb's bag and said he would kill him if he didn't follow orders. At one point, the man grabbed the bag when Lamb didn't move fast enough, leaving the barrel just inches from the 49-year-old's face.
"I thought I was going to die. Because he was so intense with his demeanor, I just thought for sure, 'This is my time,'" Lamb said.
The man told Lamb to turn around and run. Lamb followed orders but turned around to ask him for his keys. The man with the gun then yelled an expletive at Lamb and took off.
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But Lamb said the robber did not get much.
"He got $13 that was in my bag, he got my cellphone, my house keys and a bottle of Dolce & Gabbana cologne. That's what made me the maddest, because I just bought it," he said with a laugh.
But he said the incident has kept him up at night.
"I'm a little more nervous at home, you know, thinking he's got my address and stuff, so I'm keeping my blinds shut [and] a loaded shotgun in the house. So, I invite him to come over if he wants to," Lamb said.
Crime Stoppers is offering a $5,000 reward for information that leads to an arrest and indictment in the case.
In the last month, there have been about a dozen theft reports and one assault, according to Dallas police.
The department's crime statistics show that the Oak Lawn area has seen a bump in car burglaries, but that overall crime numbers have dropped.
But residents, such as the Dallas Young Stonewall Democrats, have asked the city for more street lights for the heavy foot-traffic areas in the neighborhood.
This week, the DYSD said the city will install 45 light posts in the Oak Lawn area.
