WASHINGTON — She’s an early morning fixture in Capitol Hill. Before the sun comes up, Willie Price goes door to door, delivering the news.
"For 29 and a half years, going on 30 years, I’ve been doing the paper," said Price. “I’m doing a job so I can take care of myself.”
Two weeks ago, Price, her cousin, and her cousin’s husband were on their normal newspaper delivery route in Price’s car when a man armed with a rifle approached them.
"We didn’t see him coming at all. I’m driving, I’m looking straight ahead like this, I’m looking out the rear because you have to do that," explained Price. "We never saw him coming and the police told us we never saw him coming because he was ducking between cars."
She said the carjacker waited until her cousin was walking back to the car after placing newspapers on people's doorsteps before showing his rifle.
“When I looked to my right that’s when I saw the gun pointed into the car at us," said Price. "Then when I got out of the car and he came around and took my phone, I had my hands like this. When he took the phone, he had the gun pointed at me.”
The suspect took Price's phone, wallet and her car. She said that same car was stolen last year in front of her home in Prince George's County.
“They took it on June 3 of last year and it’s almost June 3 again and it’s gone," she said.
Delivering papers was another way to help make ends meet. Price’s day job is working the cafeteria at the Library of Congress, which she’s done for 43 years.
“When I first started, it was a job for me to take care of my children and as time went on it became more so a part of my income," said Price.
She is still delivering newspapers to the neighborhood because she needs the money, but now she waits until the sun comes up before starting her route.
“I have so much fear that it [has to be] daylight," said Price. "I can’t go before then and plus, my son goes with me now.”
The two travel in a rental car while her insurance covers the cost. Then, she said, she'll purchase a used car as expenses, including an increased car insurance payment, continue to pile up.
"In the world of what these kids are doing, they say ‘free cars’. They call them free cars because they’re going to go out and get them a free car," said Price. "Yes, it’s free to them because they don’t have to pay the charges of the mess they made for me and whoever gets their car stolen from them."
DC Police are still searching for the person responsible for the carjacking.
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