Though he lost his eyesight 15 years ago, there are some things Lamont Levels can still see.
(DallasNews)- One of them is the pitfalls of falling in with gangs, a path he tries to deter youngsters from through his anti-gang non-profit, Now Eye See Inc.
But barely a month ago, as WFAA-TV (Channel 8) reported, he came face-to-face with the scope of his challenge. He was robbed by what he thinks were two teenage members of the gang he co-founded years ago — but not before disarming the robbers and firing a shot in their direction.
Levels, who says he was one of eight co-founders of the Dallas Bloods, has been sightless since 2001, when he was shot in the head during a failed drug transaction.
Then came the robbery, which happened Aug. 23 as Levels was headed to his South Dallas home after trading large bills for a stash of one-dollar bills, which are easier for him to monitor.
First came the blow to the head, so forceful that at first he thought he’d been shot – maybe in reprisal for one of his past transgressions.
Then, as he sat crumpled on the ground, one robber held him while the other searched his pockets – and that’s when he knew they were only after his money, probably imagining it was a large amount.
Their silence told him he knew them. Eventually, he guessed that the one holding him had the gun, so he went for it and fought with the robber, who bit him and eventually had to ask his partner for help.
After a struggle, he managed to wrestle the gun away as the two ran off with his money.
“As soon as I got the gun, I just turned and fired, ‘pow,’ and he took off running,” Levels told the station. “They say I grazed him.”
The police, he said, “couldn’t believe that a blind guy had disarmed two robbery suspects,” he said.