A man is in jail after police say he held a 1-year-old at gunpoint Wednesday while robbing a business in Tennessee.
Jaquazius Baker, 26, is charged with aggravated assault and aggravated robbery. Police are searching for his suspected accomplice, who they said kept watch at the door.
The child is okay. His mother recalled the terrifying four minutes during which the gunman threatened the life of her child.
"I was looking at the TV, rocking my baby to sleep," Westley Wilson said. "When I heard the beep from the alarm at the door, that's when they just walked in."
The suspects demanded money from the victim and became upset when she was only able to give them an estimated $17, according to court records.
"I just thought they were going to kill my baby because they couldn't get (any) more money," Wilson said. "He just grabbed my baby."
The 19-year-old mother was working behind the counter at her family's laundromat, which was opened by her grandparents long before she was born. She said the robbery, though not the first, was an invasion of a place that feels like home to the family.
"I don't understand why so many people just want to take what you work so hard for, for years," said the baby's grandmother, Marsha Wilson. "You going to throw your life away for two rolls of pennies and, like a roll of quarters?"
Marsha Wilson is no stranger to gun violence. Her son was killed in 2014. She dreams of a future for her daughter's son, which is something that was taken from hers.
Marsha Wilson joined five other mothers in February to beg young men in Memphis to put down their guns. Now that her grandson has been threatened, she's doing it again.
"I'm upset and I'm bitter, a little, about what's taken place here with these guns," Marsha Wilson said.
She is asking gun owners to be responsible with their weapons in order to keep them out of the hands of criminals.
"Everybody wants to know, how do the guns get on the streets?" Marsha Wilson said. "It comes from the gun owners. You're not locking them up properly. When they're not in your usage, put them up."
During the robbery, Westley Wilson was able to call her cousin, who pulled into the back parking lot and saw the suspects as they left the scene. One of the suspects pointed his weapon at the victim's cousin before making an exit.
The entire ordeal has Westley Wilson concerned for her safety and that of her child.
"It made me nervous after yesterday," she said on Thursday. "Anything could happen. You can be anywhere and anything could happen."
Baker is being held on $200,000 bond.
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