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86 Year Old Fends Off Mugger - and Curses Him Out, Too
By
Jen Chung
Published Jun 8, 2006
Modified Mar 7, 2008
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By
Jen Chung
Published Jun 8, 2006
Modified Mar 7, 2008
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We can only hope that we'll be as tough as Elisabeth Rubin when we're 86. Rubin managed to frustrate a potential purse snatcher on West 34th Street and 7th Avenue - even as he attacked her. The Post reports that Rubin, was on her way to a doctor's appointment when shee stopped to look at a store window. Then she noticed "a middle-aged, mustached man walking up behind her, menacingly holding a wooden sign post." Who the hell walks around with a sign post? The man tried grab her purse off her walker, but she refused to let go, so then he kicked her walker away and hit her on the head, only taking a bag of cornbread she had baked for her doctor.
The mugger then swiped the bag, but when he realized it contained the cornbread, he got even angrier. "He mashed my bag of cornbread," she said. "Then I grabbed my walker and I tried to get away."
Knowing she couldn't outrun him, Rubin instead stopped to stare him down.
"I turned back and looked at him. He only spoke Spanish. He called me puta [whore], and finally I said, 'Puta your mother!' and he started to run."
"Puta your mother!" Since Rubin was more pre-occupied with making it to her doctor, she didn't call the police, only telling a friend after her doctor's appointment. The friend wonders, "Everybody is walking around with cellphones. Even if they didn't want to help, why didn't somebody dial 911?" That is true - 34th Street at around 10 in the morning is usually packed. Anyway, Rubin sounds like a tough old bird - even though the NYPD suggests that you just let a mugger have your purse.
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Jen Chung
Jen Chung is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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