Woman dragged by minivan at Walmart after purse was stolen

By TOSIN FAKILE

Click here for updates on this story

    NASHVILLE, Tennessee (WSMV) — A Nashville woman was dragged several feet by a minivan at a Walmart parking lot on Sunday afternoon after a man snatched her purse.

Kristina Calvin said it happened at the Walmart on Lebanon Pike in Nashville. She said it occurred as she was loading her groceries into her car parked in the middle of the parking lot.

“So I had two baskets of groceries, and I was bringing them out to the car by myself and my trunk, and I was loading them inside the car,” Calvin said. “Out of nowhere, this man just had reached in the bottom of my cart and grabbed my purse.”

“I looked up, and he was running, and I proceeded to run after him and grabbed my purse and was trying to pull my purse back,” she added.

Calvin said the man was parked two to three spots away from her.

“And he went to get into his vehicle, and then I wedged my body, and so he couldn’t shut the door and kept my hand on my purse and took my left hand was honking his horn. Screaming trying to get help or assistance,” Calvin said.

Calvin said she tried convincing the man to hand her the cellphone from her purse.

“I just told him I need my cell phone. Like you can take my purse. I want my cell phone,” Calvin. And that’s when he put it in reverse, and I still held on to my purse for some odd reason. And I got dragged until I couldn’t hold on anymore.”

Calvin said she doesn’t remember how she let go. The incident left her with bruises to her ankle and thigh. She said she held on to her purse because of her phone, which held memories of her family.

“I knew that I had pictures and videos of my kids. My son’s a wrestler; we just got back from this region tournament that he won. And so I had all the videos of his matches,” Calvin said. “And I knew that if I lost my phone, I wouldn’t be able to get those back because I had not backed up my iPhone, which I have done now.”

“I just knew it’d be gone. So I didn’t care about anything else. It was I was just thinking about my memories at the moment,” she added.

Even though she is in better spirits, Calvin said she wants the man held responsible two days after it happened.

“I don’t want him to be able to do this anyone else. I don’t want him to think that what he did was okay. I’m mad. I’m really mad,” she said. “My ankle hurts. It hurts so bad, but I want to catch him. That is my main objective is I want to see him prosecuted.”

She has this tip for others, so they don’t go through the same thing.

“Just be vigilant and be aware of your surroundings,” Calvin said. “had I done what I normally do, which is I usually put my purse in front and lock my car as I load my groceries. This time I didn’t, and that’s when he took full advantage of the situation but be aware now.”

“It doesn’t matter what part of town you’re in,” she added. “It doesn’t matter what time of day it is. You can be taken advantage of.”

Calvin said her purse, which had her cellphone but no wallet, was later found by her husband about five minutes from the Walmart on Lebanon Pike, where it happened.

“At the same time, my husband was receiving a message from Life 360 saying to check on me that I had possibly been in a car wreck. He immediately got in the car and traveled to where it said my wreck was because he thought maybe the guy got in a wreck,” Calvin said. “But he didn’t. He had taken my wallet and thrown my purse out on the Schutz lane by the Hermitage funeral home.”

She said she didn’t get a good look at the man’s face, but She described the minivan he was driving as a White or off-white 2010 model of a Dodge Grand Caravan with damage.

“It had damage to the front passenger quarter panel bumper area right there,” she said.

She’s asking anyone who sees the minivan to call CRIMESTOPPERS.

Please note: This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.