As you could probably discern from my recent post about the Gurkha and the forty thieves, I’m absolutely fascinated by examples of modern-day heroism. Such stories strike against the notion—dominant in advanced Western societies—that crime and violence are problems that should be left to the criminal justice professionals.
In the normal realm, we strip ourselves of the responsibility for the safety of our lives and property (and the lives and property of our neighbors) and expect that a public servant should give their lives, if need be, to protect us. But sometimes a person forgets that foiling crime is the job of the cops and their natural bravery overrides their role as passive citizens.
And sometimes that person is a handbag-wielding grandmother.
Notice that plenty of other people on the street witness the incident (including the guy holding the videocamera) but make no attempt to intervene. But once the septuagenarian starts wailing on the six men armed with sledgehammers(!), these good citizens suddenly rise up to thwart the robbers.
I guess there’s nothing that can stoke a young man’s bravery like being shamed by a courageous old woman.
February 8th, 2011 | 7:29 pm
The granny had a better chance of not getting hit by a sledgehammer than you would, Joe.
If you had intervened, there’s a better chance of you getting swung at by a sledge hammer than the old granny.
February 8th, 2011 | 8:07 pm
Is that in England? I didn’t know you were allowed to hurt criminals there. That old lady is lucky her face was blurred in the video, or she might get charged with assault.
February 8th, 2011 | 8:21 pm
That old lady is clearly not a Christian!
February 8th, 2011 | 10:57 pm
Is this for real? That old lady’s running awfully fast for a seventy-year-old. On the other hand, those guys really are smashing up the building.
February 9th, 2011 | 6:57 am
I’m waiting for our resident pacifists to chide Joe for praising this woman’s sub-Christian violence.
February 9th, 2011 | 9:18 am
Even better, according to the woman, she didn’t realize at first that she was breaking up a robbery. She thought they were assaulting someone and she stepped in to stop it.
February 9th, 2011 | 9:52 am
I think it was the fact that one of the robbers was riding a scooter that allowed the septuagenarian to think that a well-slung purse could do the trick. The surrounding spectators were too young to remember the “mods” and their scooters from the mid-sixties.
February 9th, 2011 | 11:25 am
I agree Joe. We should be prepared to defend ourselves. Someone once said, “When you need the police in seconds, they are only minutes away.”
February 9th, 2011 | 10:59 pm
This reminded me of an article I read this afternoon. I hadn’t heard of the Guardian Angles before.
February 10th, 2011 | 10:36 am
The reason it worked is that most criminals really don’t want to add murder/attempted murder charges to their rap sheet, and she’d clearly slowed down their crime and drawn attention to them, thereby making their chances of success and escape far less. So it was time to cut their losses and run.
Not saying that it wasn’t brave of her, just that it explains why a bunch of armed guys would run away after getting hit by a purse. *Most* of the time; she was still running a risk that this wasn’t one of those times.
February 14th, 2011 | 5:53 am
Patrick -
“non Angli, sed Angeli.”
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