A 76-year-old Cleveland grandmother is pleading for stronger security measures after she was carjacked at gunpoint outside her apartment — an attack that has shaken both her body and her sense of safety.
Barbara Ward, a longtime resident of St. Luke’s Manor, had barely settled into the driver’s seat of her car when two young men rushed her with a gun. They demanded her keys. She resisted, gripping them tightly, but they pried them from her hands.
Before the pair sped off, Ward begged them to return her bag and walker — items she depends on daily. Instead, they shouted at her to grab them herself. As they pulled away in her vehicle, they backed into her, knocking her down and running over her foot. She was later hospitalized, treated, and released without major injuries.
“It was terrifying,” Ward told Cleveland 19. “I was traumatized behind that because I didn’t believe what had just happened to me.”
The attack didn’t happen in isolation. Ward says her car windows were smashed twice earlier this year. Dozens of residents have shared similar stories of vandalism and break-ins, and several cars in the parking lot still bear shattered windows.
Her daughter, Aisha, says the situation has become intolerable.
“They don’t feel safe. Nobody does,” she said, calling on management to add real, consistent protection. “Residents shouldn’t have to live with this level of fear.”
Cleveland police found Ward’s stolen car within two hours and arrested three people inside, including two young men believed to be involved. But the arrests do little to quiet her worry.
“It’s fear,” she said quietly. “I have fear in my heart… I don’t want teenagers walking up on me, no kind of way now.”
The building’s management team says additional patrols will be added to the lot and more updates are expected soon.
For Ward, the changes can’t come fast enough.
After years in the complex, she’s now left wondering whether home is still the safe place she believed it to be — and how many more residents will suffer before security becomes more than a promise.
