KOIN.com

‘Guys, it’s just a car,’ Gresham man tells armed carjackers

GRESHAM, Ore. (KOIN) — A Gresham man was carjacked at gunpoint in his own driveway Saturday night, one of two incidents within minutes that police continue to look into.

David Swanson was arriving home from work around 7 p.m. that night. He had just gotten out of his car at his home on NE 165th near Hoyt when he was confronted by 2 people.

“Just as I shut the door and hit the lock, there were two gentlemen dressed in black, they were two Black gentlemen, younger, and as I was walking toward the front door and I turned around and he had a gun,” Swanson told KOIN 6 News.

“He pointed it at me and said, ‘Give me your keys.’ I was fumbling a little bit, trying to stay calm, and he said, ‘Give me your keys or I will f-ing kill you.’ And I said, ‘Guys, it’s just a car.'”

He gave them the keys and they drove off with his 2019 Ford Fusion.

“You don’t think it’s going to happen to you until it happens to you,” Swanson said.

Shortly before that, Gresham police said, two people tapped on the window of a car with a gun at NE 168th and Halsey. But the driver of that car took off.

Swanson said it’s frustrating to see what’s happened to the Portland metro area.

“Defund the police and then everyone complains about crime,” he said.

Now he arms himself to make sure his family is protected.

“It’s the wild, wild west,” he told KOIN 6 News. “It’s just not Oregon anymore and it makes you want to move. This is our home and has been for a long time.”