At the top of Vincent Hayes’ Christmas list is a new place to live.
The 44-year-old man and his friend James Green, 48, were both shot Wednesday night when a pair of armed robbers confronted them inside their home in the 2300 block of East 14th Street.
“Actually, to put it in a nutshell, this is really not Beverly Hills, ” Hayes said in an interview at his home Thursday afternoon. “There’s no other way to say it. We’re not living in a prestigious place.”
As he and Green recounted the previous night, Hayes’ cell phone continually rang as friends and family asked him what had happened and what he was going to do.
“No, sweetheart. I’m trying to find me a place to stay after Christmas,” he told one caller.
As of Thursday evening, Chattanooga police had not named any suspects in the shooting.
Hayes and Green said they had returned to the house after a trip to the grocery store about 7:30 p.m. Wednesday. A friend of Hayes’ was coming by to purchase a Christmas tree that Hayes had on the side of the house.
Green hopped out of their car, dropped off a few items inside and headed to the bathroom. When he walked out, a man dressed all in black with a mask over the bottom of his face was pointing a .40-caliber pistol in his face.
“I wasn’t fixing to let him shoot me in the face, so I grabbed at the gun,” he recalled. “That’s when I brought it down and he shot me in the pelvis.”
Green threw money from his pocket at the man and hurried back into the bathroom, slamming the door as the man tried to force the gun inside.
“As soon as I heard the ‘pow’ of the gunshot, everything went numb. Then everything started hurting, and then I felt blood running down my leg in my pants,” he said.
Meanwhile, Hayes was outside, looking at the tree, when he heard noises coming from inside. As he walked back in the front door, another gunman — also masked — was waiting behind a couch standing upright beside the door.
When Hayes stepped inside, the man swung a revolver down, striking him on the right shoulder. The gun fired and sent a slug through the muscle above Hayes’ collarbone.
Hayes fell to the floor, and the gunman pointed the weapon at him, demanding money. Hayes gave him $120 from his pocket.
The two suspects fled the house on foot, he said.
The attacks mark at least 65 shootings with injury in Chattanooga this year, according to newspaper archives.
Green and Hayes both were treated and released just after midnight and returned home to rest.
Doctors told Green he would be sore. They also told him to keep the half-dollar-sized exit wound in his thigh clean and to stay off his feet for about a week, he said.
Green thought the gunmen might have targeted them, thinking they had cash because the pair run concessions sales out of a van around the neighborhood.
Hayes said relatives and friends told him the neighborhood wasn’t safe when he moved there. This shooting, a recent robbery nearby and repeated burglaries at a corner store just blocks away have convinced him to move.
A public website that lists crime reports for Chattanooga and Hamilton County shows only a theft report on South Lyerly Street, about a block from Hayes’ home in late October for the last six months of reported crime.
Contact staff writer Todd South at tsouth@timesfree press.com or 423-757-6347.