Dec 31, 2008 8:09 pm US/Pacific
Woman Successfully Fights Off Armed Carjacker
BERKELEY (CBS) ―
A woman on a routine trip to the grocery store successfully fought off an armed carjacker with a small pair of scissors and the suspect's own gun.
Harmony Bates, a personal chef, was loading groceries she had just purchased from the Berkeley Whole Foods Market into her Volkswagen van when a suspect approached her and demanded money.
"I thought he was going to beg for money, but he said, 'I have a gun,'" said Harmony Bates. "I yelled for help, and he punched me in the face."
The suspect pushed her into her van, but Harmony managed to wrest his pistol away from him.
"I grabbed the gun, I turned it at him and said, 'If you don't leave right now I'll shoot your balls off,'" Harmony said.
The two scuffled in the vehicle, and Harmony grabbed the small pair of scissors in her vest pocket. The blade was only a couple inches long.
"I grabbed them and I started stabbing him in the shoulder, I started stabbing him in the neck," Harmony said, unimpressed by his fighting ability. "I thought, 'That's all he has for a punch?'"
The suspect eventually had enough and fled the vehicle, leaving Harmony with minor cuts and bruises from the altercation. The suspect reportedly ran down the street, and unsuccessfully tried to carjack another motorist.
The man then spotted someone walking from their home with car keys in their hand, and stole the keys and the car, driving away. He has not yet been apprehended.
Police usually discourage people from fighting back against armed assailants, and say Harmony was lucky to escape further injury.
"We don't encourage [fighting back], however… it appears as though it did the trick," said Ofc. Andrew Frankel from the Berkeley Police Department.
Harmony hopes authorities track the suspect down, and say it will serve as a message to crooks that "even if they say 'I have a gun,' it doesn't mean people are going to lay down for them," she said.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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