A Humble, Texas woman, who chose to be identified as “Robyn,” parked her SUV near the convenience store to fill her tires with air. She’d done it a few times before and knew the routine. She was comfortable with leaving the driver’s side unlocked while she filled the rear passenger’s tire with air.

That’s when Sahrach Iyere, a would-be carjacker, saw the opportunity to strike. The whole thing was captured on the gas station’s security camera system.

“I saw a shadow out of the peripheral of my eye,” Robyn told KTRK. She followed her instinct to check the driver’s seat, and sure enough, Iyere was starting the car and putting it in gear. Robyn held onto the car’s door to keep him from driving away.

Iyere wasn’t willing to give up that easily. He began to push back, desperate to make a break with her SUV.

“[Iyere] just immediately starts punching me. He says, ‘I’m gonna stab you if you don’t let go,'” she recalled.

She held on while the carjacker tried driving away

The gas station’s cameras captured Iyere putting the SUV into reverse, but Robyn never let go. He eventually drove onto the street, but Robyn’s persistence distracted him enough to cause him to crash into a brick sign.

While stopped, Robyn spotted her purse in the passenger’s seat. That’s when she decided to outsmart the carjacker.

“I said, ‘If you just give it to me, I can give you the money.’ So he gave me my purse, and I knew that I had a knife in my purse,” she recalled. She drew her knife, causing Iyere to flee. He saunters away from her SUV. She may have won the battle, but his reaction started a war.

“He blows me a kiss. And he’s just grinning, smiling like it was nothing,” she said. She began to follow Iyere, eager to see him arrested. “I was just flagging people down, asking them, ‘Hey, can you stop? Can you call the police?'”

Robyn saw him arrested—but not for long

Deputies apprehended Iyere, who discovered he was already on deferred adjudication for a stalking charge from 2020. Therefore, Magistrate Renette Franklin originally demanded a high bond.

“It does appear that the defendant’s current supervision has not deterred the defendant from engaging in criminal behavior, necessitating a high bond,” she was recorded saying.

However, his bond was lowered to $20,000, which was quickly paid. Now, Iyere walks free. Now she’s prepared to protect herself.