A former running back for the Howard Hustlin’ Tigers, Derrick Ross had nowhere to run Sunday evening when a man blocked him on West 37th Street and told him to “give it up.”
Ross said he complied, reaching into his left pocket to give the robber “the 10 little bucks I had,” only to feel a bullet rip through his right shoulder.
With the walk to his mother’s house painfully interrupted, Ross composed himself, stumbled the 200 yards back to his brother’s house and punched the doorbell until someone came downstairs.
An ambulance arrived, and Ross spent six hours Sunday night getting his shoulder wrapped at a local hospital, he said.
Ross became at least the 75th shooting victim in Chattanooga this year.
“This incident is still under investigation and no other details are available right now,” said an e-mail from Chattanooga police spokeswoman Sgt. Jerri Weary. The department did not announce any arrests or suspect leads Monday afternoon.
Slowly sinking onto a couch next to his brother’s Christmas tree Monday morning, Ross, a 30-year-old cook at Buffalo Wild Wings and KFC, dismissed the gaping hole in his shoulder as a “flesh wound.”
But he spread his thumb and forefinger about an inch to illustrate how close doctors said the bullet came to his vital organs. He’ll miss about a week of work as a result of his injuries, he said.
“I hit the ground, not because it hurt — I wanted to play possum,” Ross said. “The only thing I really think about are my kids.”
His four children are why he moved home this year after five years working various jobs in Nashville. He’s living in the area where he grew up and where people remember his days on the gridiron.
Two of his children attend Calvin Donaldson Elementary School, and one is back in Nashville. His oldest son, a Red Bank Middle School sixth-grader who’s also a running back, “scored a touchdown the first time I went,” Ross said with a grin.
“I’m glad to be alive,” Ross said. “I go to work, I come home, I go check on my mom and I come back home. I haven’t had no conflict with anybody in Chattanooga. Can’t figure it out.”