A Brooklyn carjacker who smashed up five vehicles and injured an elderly bystander tried to escape by posing as a victim — limping down the block until witnesses frantically pointed him out, cops said.
“That’s him! He stole the car!’’ Astra Bristol recalled shouting to police, who finally nabbed suspect Clinton Lawson, 30, halfway down the block.
Lawson began his one-man crime wave in Crown Heights around 5:30 p.m. Saturday, stealing a 2010 Toyota Corolla at gunpoint at Eastern Parkway and Utica Avenue, cops said. He didn’t get very far before allegedly striking street vendor Dave Staten, 75, and a 2014 Mercedes-Benz on Kingston Avenue.
“I was loading my car, and then I was hit. I fell back to the curb,” Staten told The Post. The elderly man said Lawson then whipped out a gun and fired a shot at the owner of the Mercedes but missed.
“Everybody was saying, ‘Stop him! Stop him!’ ” Staten said.
Dwight McPherson, 57, said he tried to confront the thief but, “He put the gun right in my face, and I just backed up.”
The crazed carjacker stole his second vehicle at Sterling Place and Brooklyn Avenue, robbing a black 2003 Nissan Xterra at gunpoint, cops said.
Once again, Lawson crashed — this time into two parked cars. He then snuck into a back yard on Sterling Place and broke into Bristol’s home.
“He came in and . . . dropped an empty shell from his gun in the bathroom, and then he tossed his gun behind the boiler in the basement,” said Bristol, who didn’t know the thug.
“He kept asking me, ‘Are the cops out there?’ ”
Lawson then took off his shirt and hat and begged Bristol to let him inside the home. Bristol said an upstairs neighbor chased him off with a knife.
Lawson nearly escaped by posing as a victim as he limped down the street.
Bristol said she frantically retrieved Lawson’s hat and shirt from the garbage can and waved them at the cops, pointing to the suspect.
“He tried to fake out the cops by saying, ‘No I’m not the guy who stole the car. I got hit. My leg is hurting, I need help,’ ” Bristol said.
Lawson was arrested and was being held at Kings County Hospital.
Additional reporting by Kirstan Conley and Larry Celona