Martin Luther King Jr.’s sister-in-law was the victim of an attempted carjacking Friday in which she was slugged in the face, Channel 2 Action News reported.
Naomi King, 83, was punched when she didn’t comply with the strong-arm robber’s demand for her keys when she pulled up to the gate of her southwest Atlanta retirement community, Channel 2 reported. Her neighbors said attacks are becoming common.
The thief “demanded her car and told her he was going to bust her in the mouth,” Lena Reid Morrow, a witness, told the television station. “Before she could say anything he had hit her in the mouth and was looking to see where her purse was in the car. But he could not see that so he turned and hit her again and by this time she was screaming.”
Atlanta police Officer Ralph Woolfolk confirmed authorities are investigating the attack at Big Bethel Village, located at 500 Richard Allen Blvd.
King is the widow of the Rev. A.D. King, the younger brother of the civil-rights champion. The couple was in the thick of the civil rights movement in the 1960s and even had their home bombed.
Now, other neighbors in the Naomi King’s community say they fear leaving the property because the attack is one of several that have plagued the area.
“I like to get my exercise,” resident Mary White told Channel 2. “I should be able to walk through here without getting accosted.”
Residents at the Big Bethel Village said another robber tried to take another woman’s car a few hours before the King attack. They want management to hire security guards.
“We’re like sitting ducks,” Morrow said.
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