GREENWOOD, Ind. (WTHR) - We've been showing you the video for days of police using a stun gun on a man accused of causing chaos across the city of Greenwood.
Now Eyewitness News is hearing exactly what one man says unfolded inside a tobacco store that set off a string of crimes.
According to police reports, what began as an armed robbery and pistol-whipping of a store clerk led to a carjacking and high-speed chase that started and ended at the same intersection of US 31 and Fry Road.
When it was over, 25-year-old Jameson McCarthy was in custody. Police are holding him in the Marion County Jail on an unrelated warrant for robbery.
Court records detail a troubled past, including prior convictions for robbery, along with battery on a corrections officer.
The video showing what finally put an end to the violent alleged crime spree has been viewed more than a million times. In the video, you see police using a TASER on McCarthy as he stands on top of a stolen van, following the high-speed chase.
The video shows McCarthy falling off the roof of the van, head first onto the street, after refusing to obey officers' orders to surrender.
Minutes earlier, another eyewitness captured video of the pursuit as it weaved through a Greenwood neighborhood, before police say McCarthy eventually crashed the van.
"It just goes to show you at anytime, any place, someone or something crazy can just happen," said Raymond Martin.
The 18-year-old certainly knows something about that. Martin says McCarthy is the same guy who held the door for him as they both walked into a Greenwood tobacco store Thursday evening.
"I started walking towards the clerk counter and I kind of did a look back and I saw the gun in his hand," recalled Martin. "Then he took the gun and put it to the side of my head and yelled at me to get on the ground.
"I sat there like, 'Oh, God. Is this really happening?'" Martin said. "He started yelling at the clerk to fill a bag of money."
Martin says McCarthy then wanted in the store's safe, but when clerk didn't follow his order, McCarthy pistol whipped him.
Martin says next, McCarthy took the clerk to the back of the store and smashed security equipment.
"I kept hearing the clerk reply, 'I'll just die here,'" said Martin. "He ended up making me, at gunpoint, fill a bag full of cigarette cartons, specifically Marlboros and Newports."
Martin says McCarthy then took another customer's car keys, phone and wallet.
"The suspect made me go out and start the van with the bag of money and bag of cigarettes," recalled Martin.
It's what Martin says McCarthy said to everyone on the way out the door, though, that he'll never forget.
"As he was walking out the door, he was saying he's a good guy, he wouldn't normally do this and that people don't give him the benefit of the doubt," Martin added.
All while the clerk Martin says McCarthy pistol-whipped was on the floor in a pool of blood.
McCarthy is facing several charges in this case, including robbery resulting in serious bodily injury, resisting police and unlawful possession of a firearm by a violent felon.
