The Tuesday September 17th 2002 broadcast of Los Angeles ABC affiliate reported Jalen Rose believed God saved him from a bullet in an attempted carjacking.

 

"God was in the car with us," said Rose at a press conference broadcast during the ABC7 News.

 

Oddly, a search of AP, UPI, Reuters, The Sporting News, and the Chicago Tribune or SunTimes (and all other major outlets) yield no record of this announcement.  The Chicago Tribune web site news coverage is below.

---

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/printedition/chi-0209180198sep18.story?null

A `blessed' Rose gets on with his career

The Bulls star survived a carjacking attempt and gunfire in a ritzy Los Angeles area, but he knows it was a close call and he was lucky

By Sam Smith
Tribune pro basketball reporter

September 18, 2002

Jalen Rose is grateful to be alive.

Earlier this month in Los Angeles, the Bulls forward came face-to-face with a would-be carjacker who fired eight shots from a 9mm handgun at Rose's rented Bentley. One bullet pierced the jaw of a longtime friend of Rose's. The others left Rose's jaw hanging open in shock.

"Bullets have no names and they're very hot," Rose mused Tuesday at the Bulls' Berto Center training facility in his first comments since the Sept. 3 robbery attempt.

"I'm blessed. That's the only thing I can say. That's the only reason I'm not standing in front of you with a couple of holes in me or why you're not [hearing] my eulogy. I was blessed that day."

That eulogy would have noted that the talented veteran, whom the Bulls traded for in February, was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, a victim of the random violence that shocks people yet seems so commonplace.

Rose, in fact, said he was not haunted by the incident. His friend, whom he declined to name, is out of the hospital and recovering. Rose said he has moved on, accepting what happened, and what almost happened, as part of life.

"Being from Detroit, I know about violence," he said. "Unfortunately, it's part of our society. There's no way around it. It can happen at 1 in the afternoon or 1 in the morning. It can happen in the suburbs or the city.

"I wasn't in Compton, I was in Brentwood, Beverly Hills. You've got to have faith and hope it doesn't happen to you or anyone around you.

"Whether you call it envy or hatred, these are hard times with the economy. The bottom line is nowadays people will rob you and harm you for a pair of gym shoes just like they would for a chain or a car."

In Rose's case it apparently was the car, an expensive Bentley he was driving home in the tony Brentwood neighborhood about 3 a.m. Rose said his car was being repaired and this was a rental, which he certainly would have surrendered.

"This wasn't about me not giving up a car," Rose said. "I don't even own a Bentley."

But he was glad the car had considerable acceleration.

Rose said he was stopped at a traffic light when several men pulled alongside and one got out with a handgun. Rose was hesitant to provide details because the assailants haven't been captured. He said he doesn't know if he was targeted because he was a professional player or if they knew who he was. He's not even sure if anything was said.

"I happened so fast it's hard for me to say where he was standing, what he had on, if he made a threat," Rose said. "The gun was a threat. He didn't have to say a word. If I didn't see the gun I probably wouldn't be here. It was pointed right at me."

Rose said he quickly considered whether to get out of the car, but then determined the gunman might shoot him anyway.

"The reality is, who says he wasn't going to rob me and shoot me?" Rose said. "It's hard to say he was just trying to rob you when he shot at the car eight times. I didn't have a chance to be scared. I had to react to the situation. My first thought was: `Let's put this thing in motion. Let's put it to the floor and see how fast it goes.'"

Eight shots were fired at Rose and his friend, most from close range. The one that hit his friend in the jaw came through the headrest behind the seat. Rose believes the headrest saved his friend's life.

"I looked up maybe a half-mile later and realized my passenger had been shot," he said. "My second reaction was not necessarily to call the police or 911 but to get to a hospital . . . and what I was going to tell his mother?"

Good news, as it turned out.

Rose recently returned to Chicago to begin workouts for Bulls training camp, which opens Oct. 1. He said he hasn't yet arranged a reunion with his estranged father, former NBA star Jimmy Walker, but that he was planning to.

Rose said he expects an improved and more exciting Bulls team, and while he didn't want to comment on the indictment of former Michigan teammate Chris Webber, he wondered why incidents from more than a decade ago continue to be dredged up.

Rose has publicly defended the ownership of handguns and said he hasn't changed his opinion since the incident.

"You have some knuckleheads," he said.

"Guns don't kill people. Stupid people with guns kill people."
Copyright © 2002, Chicago Tribune