JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The salon owner who was shot on the Westside while closing up his store spent his 47th birthday Thursday reflecting on the moments he nearly lost his life.
Lonnie Lamar said his faith in God kept him alive during one of the hardest weeks he's ever endured, and now he's back to work. Lamar was shot twice at his salon on Cardinal Boulevard May 29 by a man who tried to rob him.
"I remember getting off from work and getting ready to clean my salon and I said, 'I wanted some chips,'" Lamar said. "I went to the corner store and came back, and before I got ready to go home, sometimes just to get the hair off of me, I have a shower here. I was going to take a quick shower and watch a little television."
Lamar never got to watch television. As he walked to his couch, someone shot him twice.
"The Holy Ghost kept me through it all. I never felt pain from the gunshot," Lamar said. "I realized I had been shot, but I wasn't feeling any pain or anything. I got my keys and ran out the door. I locked the door and I sat on the steps until JSO and the ambulance arrived."
Lamar alerted a neighbor he'd been shot and called his mother and sister. He was taken to the hospital for surgery with life-threatening injuries, but pulled through.
"When God is with you, who could be against you?" Lamar said. "The love that I got from the entire Jacksonville -- races, people of all colors. Straight, gay, black, white, Jew, gentile, saved, unsaved, that's what pulled me through."
Lamar said he has forgiven the man who shot him. That person has still not been caught. Anyone with information on the shooting is urged to contact the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office at 904-630-0500 or call Crime Stoppers anonymously at 1-866-845-TIPS.