Mar 23, 2010 9:30 pm US/Central

Flying Baby Puts The Brakes On Dallas Repo Man

DALLAS (CBS 11 / TXA 21)

A southeast Dallas mother is accused of taking extreme measures that endangered her baby in order to keep her SUV from being repossessed.

Dallas Police say 28-year-old Krystal Gardner tossed her one-year-old through an open window seconds before a repo man was about to drive her Ford Expedition away.

Luke Ross was the repo man involved in the bizarre chain of events. Ross says his correct title is recovery agent. "It sounds like it's going to be easy, but none of them are ever easy… when people know their car is up for repo, they will go to any extent to keep it."

It was late in the afternoon when he showed up at a house on Lansdowne Drive in southeast Dallas. The 31-year-old already had the keys to repossess Gardner's Expedition. "I open the door and I don't even have the door closed when I'm in. I put the key in and start it. I look out of the corner of my eye and I see a baby fly through the window."

The Dallas Police report says Gardner tossed her baby through the open window of her SUV. Ross says the one-year-old landed hard on the back seat. "Like a kid bouncing on a bed."

The boy immediately started crying, so Ross put the Expedition in park. State law forbids a car from being repossessed if a person is inside.  When Ross stepped out, he was greeted by a 15-year-old with a shot gun. "He shot once in the air and then shot once at me and hit me with a couple of pellets in the leg. It's not worth taking someone's life over a car. We're just guys out here trying to make a living."

But Gardner's family and neighbors say the teenage boy fired just once in the air and no more, but they declined to speak to CBS 11. As for Ross, he chalks it up to another strange chapter in the dangerous profession of recovering cars. "I do something I love, but I'm lucky that I make it home every day."

Gardner was charged with endangering a child. The 15-year-old who lives in Gardner's house and fired the shot gun was also arrested. Meanwhile, Ross successfully repossessed the Expedition after Dallas Police responded to the altercation.

 
KTVT / KTXA

LINK TO VIDEO

http://cbs11tv.com/local/Repo.Man.Dallas.2.1584962.html