At 10 p.m. on July 4, Michelle Booker-Hicks stopped for gas at a Shell station along Interstate 35 in south Dallas while on her way to a family holiday gathering.

As she ran into the convenience store to pay, her two sons, ages 2 and 4, were waiting in the back seat of her SUV. Booker-Hicks had left the car running. Before she returned to the vehicle, a man jumped into the driver’s seat and attempted to drive away.

Ricky Wright

“I proceeded to jump in my backseat and told the gentleman to stop, to get out of the car. He would not get out of the car. He turned around and looked at me. I reached over the armrest to get my glove compartment and that’s when I fired at him, once I got the gun from my glove compartment.” Booker-Hicks told FOX4 Dallas.

Her shot found its mark — square in the face of carjacker Ricky Wright.

“I wasn’t necessarily worried about my car,” Booker-Hicks recalled. “I was more worried about my kids.” In the moment, she hadn’t been aiming to kill. She just wanted to stop him.

Wright lost control of the SUV, crashed it into a light pole and tried to flee the scene on foot, but collapsed after crossing the road.

“I should have just have emptied the whole clip but I didn’t,” Booker-Hicks told CBS DFW. “I just wanted to give him a warning shot, that was it. I’m not a killer or anything like that, but I do believe in defending what’s mine.”

Booker-Hicks and her sons were not hurt, but Wright was taken to a local hospital. According to police, the next morning he was in serious but stable condition and has been charged with two accounts of Unlawful Restraint and Unauthorized Use of a Motor Vehicle. Court records reveal he has a long history of charges over the past 15 years, including assault, theft, resisting arrest, making terroristic threats and drug possession.

Booker-Hicks’ neighbors support her actions protecting her family.

Deja Harris, who has no connection to the attempted carjacking and is also a mother of two toddlers, told WFAA, “I would have probably done the same thing, because I don’t know if he was going to hurt my kids, so my main objective is to keep my kids safe.”

Dicole Smith, another neighbor with no connection to the case who is a father of two, asked the news outlet, “What would happen if she hadn’t done what she had to do? Where would her kids be and where would she be? And how would she be feeling right now or what really would be going on with her kids?”

Booker-Hicks had recently acquired the gun to defend herself but didn’t think she’d be using it hours later. Although she did not have a license to carry, Texas state law allows unlicensed carry of firearms inside a vehicle. Booker-Hicks was questioned at the scene and released without any charges.