Woman fights off knife-wielding muggers at BU
Boston University Police report that a woman leaving the rear of 685 Comm. Ave. around 9 p.m. on April 28 was attacked by two would-be muggers:
One of the male suspects was holding a folding pocket knife and demanded the victim's pocketbook. The victim then struggled with the suspects over the purse. The second suspect then displayed a knife by opening the blade and grabbed the victim by her hair. During the scuffle one of the suspects hit the victim in the jaw but she continued to struggle and was able to knock the knife from one of the suspect's hands and both suspects then fled in the direction of Granby St.
Police described the alleged perps as two 20-something white guys, one blond, about 6' tall and weighing 180 pounds:
The victim further stated that both males appeared to be students by their clothes and young appearance.
Comments
Usually just give them the money
It's great she was able to fight them off. She'd probably feel much worse afterwards, had they gotten the better of her.
But I hope that nobody takes this incident as encouragement to fight back in case of normal mugging.
If either of the attackers actually had any intent to use a knife on her, she probably would have been cut. I understand that even an expert martial artist, trained in unarmed defense against knife attacks, would probably be cut.
I'm guessing that, in this particular incident, the victim assessed the intent of the attackers and either was confident that they were exceptionally unlikely to harm her if she fought back, or feared that they intended more than to steal her pocketbook.
In general, if you're pretty sure that the attacker only wants your money, phone, and/or iPod, just give it to them and get out of there.
The risk of injury is not worth it, and the piece-of-crap attacker is not worth it.
Hmmmmmm. I Understand, But...
... I think the more people who fight back, the less crime there is likely to be in the future.
If general societal knowledge is that it's a good thing to just give up the cash, then those muggers who might have had a slight misgiving concerning their actions will not have that misgiving. They'll expect no resistance. Easy money.
On the other hand, if you expect that your victim is likely to fight back, that's a major deterrent.
Certainly, not being dead is the worthier goal in each individual circumstance, but society as a whole would be better served if everybody fought back as hard as they were able, no?
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
I could agree with that, ...
...in an "an armed society is a polite society" sort of way.
But, for better or worse, Massachusetts is not Texas, and the criminals will almost always have better weapons than you do.
They'll also be crazier than you, whether it's because they're mentally ill to begin with, are druggies, are "troubled youths" who are drunk on the power of a gun, or whatever. So, they have the craziness advantage in an encounter that probably lasts only seconds.
Do all the sensible things to reduce the likelihood of an encounter, but once you're in it, you'd better be able and willing to shoot them in an instant (which is strongly disrecommended in MA for legal reasons, in addition to the risk to bystanders and to your psyche or soul), or just get away.