DETROIT (WJBK) -- A man allegedly tried to rape a woman out for a
walk with her six-month-old baby on Detroit's west side in the area of
Lyndon and Westwood. That same man reportedly shot her as she tried to
get away. The woman in intense pain and barely conscience was
lifted onto a stretcher -- her beautiful baby girl in a stroller
watching it all as she was comforted by a female police officer. "I heard 'take off your clothes,' and then he's like 'you scream, I'm going to shoot you,'" says witness Miguel Marshall.

The
15-year-old heard and saw the whole thing. The woman was going for a
walk with her baby when a man forced her at gunpoint into the backyard
of an abandoned house. The man told her to undress, so she did, even
taking off her bra, but before she took off her underwear she screamed
for help. Another woman answered her call. "I heard somebody
screaming 'help me, help me, somebody help me.' My daughter was beating
on the door really, really bad, so I opened the door and my daughter was
like 'he shot her, he shot her,'" she says. "We saw the blood and she
turned to her side and it was in her back, and she kept saying 'give me
my baby, my baby.'" "She said she was walking her baby and this
guy approached her and made them go in the backyard a couple of doors
down and made her take her clothes off and he was going to rape her and
she took off running and that's when he shot her in the back." This
woman says the victim gave her a cell phone number and asked her to
call the baby's grandmother. She says her daughter made that call while
she applied pressure to the victim's wound as instructed by EMS. Police say the woman was shot with a large caliber handgun. The bullet was dangerously close to her spine.

As
the ambulance rushed to Sinai-Grace Hospital, a DPD officer stayed with
the baby on the scene while trying to calm that baby's grandmother on
the phone, trying to explain a tragedy no one can understand. DPD
arrested a suspect minutes after the crime. They recovered the gun used
at the scene and police dogs traced his scent in the backyard.
Neighbors are relieved he's in jail, but when is enough, enough? "This is so terrible. I'm so sorry, and God bless this woman who got shot," Marshall says.

The mother is in critical condition.

The good news is the baby is safe. She was taken to the hospital and reunited with her family.

Sources tell FOX 2 the suspect is also believed to be the same person who shot and killed a man in Stoepel Park on Monday.