Black Woman Recovering After Being Shot In Face By White Driver In Road Rage Incident: 'You Were Trying To Kill Me, But Why?

Altovise McCloud was shot multiple times, including in her face, by 36-year-old Rebecca Armstrong on July 19 in Moody, Alabama, WBRC reported.

“I work at UAB [Hospital]; they had to take me back to UAB,” McCloud told the outlet in an interview. The lab technician added, “I’ve seen things like that, but when it’s done to you, it’s so different.”

The incident happened just before 5 p.m. as she was driving home from work when she and other drivers were behind a vehicle sitting idle for several minutes at an intersection near McCloud’s home.

After someone honked their horn, Armstrong stepped out of her car and walked toward McCloud’s vehicle. She described the woman as angry and accused McCloud of “following her.”

“She said, ‘You’ve been following me for days.’ I said, ‘Ma’am, I don’t know you, I don’t know what you’re talking about,'” McCloud told WBRC.

“I looked down at my purse, and when I looked back over to her, that’s when I saw the barrel and her gun. She was beating on the window with her gun,” McCloud continued. “I looked at the barrel; I looked straight, I was like ‘Oh, my God, I don’t know you ma’am,’ because she’s just screaming.”

The situation escalated quickly as the enraged woman fired multiple shots into McCloud’s vehicle and struck her in the head.

“She shot me, but my hand was here,” McCloud explained how she tried to shield herself from the bullet.

“She shot me. It went through my hand; it went through my cheek, shattered the tip of my jawbone, and the bone here, a hole in the top of my mouth, came out this way,” she continued.

When Moody police arrived, they discovered McCloud had suffered multiple gunshot wounds. She was transported to UAB Hospital and spent days recovering from the near-death experience.

Authorities took Armstrong into custody and booked her at St. Clair County Jail just hours after the shooting. She faces multiple charges, including aggravated assault, attempted murder, aggravated assault non-family-gun, discharging a firearm into an occupied vehicle and reckless endangerment, per WBRC. She is currently held without bond.

While McCloud has a long recovery ahead, she’s thankful the injuries she sustained were not life-threatening.

“I still have my teeth, my hand, it shattered my finger, my thumb, got to have multiple surgeries on that one, but I still have my nerve, I can still move it,” she said. “God, even though he couldn’t stop her, he made that bullet the way that it wouldn’t do anything terminal.”

As police continue investigating the shooting, McCloud has questions she would ask Armstrong about the incident:

“What were you thinking? What was your mindset? You were trying to kill me, but why?” McCloud would ask Armstrong.

“I still love you, even though your mindset, it’s not correct. I still love you,” McCloud said.

Atlanta Black Star reported that McCloud’s fiance, Ronnie T. Allen, shared her story on his Facebook account.

“No rational reasoning or explanation can justify the destruction this Animal purposely caused. I know the politically correct answer would be to say, ‘We forgive her’, but as of right now, ‘I DO NOT!,” Allen wrote. “This has triggered a huge physical and financial hardship on us both and a tremendous disruption in family activities that will be missed because of a lengthy recovery! We’ve got a long road to travel so please forgive us if we seem distant in the near future. Hard work is now in progress,” he continued.

McCloud’s family launched a GoFundMe campaign on Wednesday to help raise money for her recovery and medical fees, raising over $1,000 of its $25,000 goal at publishing.