One criminal was so brazen that he attacked an elderly woman in broad daylight and attempted to snatch her purse. However, this elderly victim’s neighbor, a great-grandmother herself, leaped into action armed only with her cane and taught the violent criminal a lesson he won’t soon forget.
It seems as if criminals are getting more desperate by the day. That’s what one great-grandmother from California thinks after she found herself in the middle of a violent purse snatching right in front of her own home.
According to ABC News, a remarkable story out of West Oakland was reported when a cane-wielding great-grandmother saved another senior from getting robbed in broad daylight. She’s called “Miss Faye,” and the only regret she had about intervening in the attempted robbery is that she wishes she could have moved a little faster.
Miss Faye saw what she thought was a rideshare dropping someone off. That’s when she witnessed someone jump out of the car and attack her late-70s neighbor. First, she tried to sic her German Shepherd on the thug, but the dog was in the backyard. So Miss Faye went with Plan B. Grabbing her cane, running out of the house, and banging on the car until the thug dropped her neighbor’s purse.
In the video, you can hear Miss Faye yelling for her German Shepherd Troy to come out and help. Since Troy was in the backyard, Miss Faye ran out with her cane to stop the attacker who was grabbing her neighbor’s purse. “If my knees weren’t hurting me, I think I would have been out there a little faster,” she said.
When asked if she was scared to intervene, Miss Faye said not one bit. “I never thought about it. Fear never crossed my mind, cos I’m crazy I guess,” she added. “I don’t know. It’s just something that’s in my nature. I do things, and it doesn’t bother me until a couple hours later. That’s how I’ve always been.”
Law enforcement never encourages people to interfere with a crime in progress, so Miss Faye is grateful because this situation could have been much worse. She has some words of advice for a more harmonious community. “Just try to be neighborly. Watch out for your neighbors and surroundings, even for your personal self, because so many things have been happening lately. Not just in Oakland, but all over the world. Just be aware of your surroundings. That’s all I have to say about that,” Miss Faye declared.
Miss Faye said her neighbors have been calling her a hero and bringing her pies and other food to show their thanks. According to her, the victim in this crime is a little bruised but now doing okay. A tenant and friend of Miss Faye stated she is a homeowner stuck in one of the worst neighborhoods in Oakland and is trying to make improvements to keep her home safe. So, people joined together to get Miss Faye some help and created a GoFundMe.
Miss Faye isn’t a stranger to crime in her neighborhood. With a crime rate of 70 per one thousand residents, Oakland has one of the highest crime rates in America compared to all communities of all sizes – from the smallest towns to the very largest cities, according to data. One’s chance of becoming a victim of either violent or property crime here is one in 14, and within California, more than 100 percent of the communities have a lower crime rate than Oakland. In fact, after researching dangerous places to live, NeighborhoodScout found Oakland to be one of the top 100 most dangerous cities in the U.S.A.