86 Yr Old Lady Beats Off Mugger While Others Refuse to Help Her

The WCBSTV.com story in the title link contains both a textual account and a video interview of the 86 year woman who successfully fended off a mugger with her umbrella. Here an excerpt:

...Elisabeth, who'd been in tougher situations as a Jew eluding the Nazi's in Europe, made her move. With the purse strap tangled around her arm, she grabbed her large umbrella from the walker, snapped it open and "I beat him with it," she said with a smile.

Then, she added, "I wish I'd poked him in the eye" with the sharp end.

According to the story and video interview, this Jewish woman survived the Nazi holocaust, 5 strokes and a broken hip before this mugger beat her with a wooden sign post. Congratulations to her for refusing to give up and for her determination to defend herself and her property.

Here's where the story takes a turn for the worse:
During the video interview, the woman mentioned that passersby did not help her while she was being assaulted. Imagine an eldery woman with a walker being struck repeatedly with a wooden club by some thug who then tries to wrest away her bag. Visualize her yelling and hitting the attacker with her umbrella while she tries to hang on to her bag. Now imagine younger, stronger and more physically able people walking past this struggle without lifting a finger to help her! This is the impression I got from her description of the events during the video interview. If this is truly what happened, the passersby who did nothing to help her are worthless cowards. I sincerely hope that the next few times someone is mugged, beaten, raped or killed in New York it happens to those same cowardly bystanders rather than to decent human beings.