Mugger thwarted

I was walking down Morrison street in NW Portland, OR a few minutes ago and suddenly about a block away I heard and saw this 60 year old woman screaming. I hear Get him! Get him! This crowd of half a dozen guys in their teens and twenties who are into riding around on these tiny kid bicycles are running after this guy and he is rushing right towards me. What should I do, trip him? I didn't have to decide. They stopped him. He had ripped off the woman's purse. The cops talked to everyone and I came home to write up my little story of life in the medium size city.

For future reference , you should have stepped to the side, took a full chop to his throat and then kicked his knee from the side, buckling if not breaking it.

Afterward you can say you thought he was coming to attack you and you just "reacted". =D

Awww Essence, great job!! I've been mugged myself, and I would have LOVED it if somebody caught the jerk. You are a hero!!

Uhm, not to imply that Essence isn't cool and all, but how is he a hero here? He said he just watched. I am sure he would have kicked ass if the guy had got to him tho. Me, I prolly would have held the door for the guy.

Doh! My bad, I thought I read that he HAD tripped him! Aww, Essence I'm SURE you would have given the chance...

Thanks Kate And Devlin, if I could have managed an easy trip sure I'd have done it. A big fight? I haven't been in one of those since I was 12 or something. I'd feel even more ambiguous about it now, hearing the cops say they'll probably just release him without punishment since there are no rooms in the jails for crimes such as purse snatching. And he was bigger than me

Hehe the Siggy method was never so graceful - it involves not moving and swinging as hard as you can as they run towards you.. relative velocity is a wonderful thing

I've always admired those with the gracefullness, dexterity, and agility to get involved in the martial arts - a lot of them are truely poetry in motion.

Being the large and clumsy ox that I am, however, have always had to rely on brute force and ignorance.

Siggy.

Something that really helps with muggers is firing a sawed-off shotgun to their head at point-blank range.
Please excuse my bitterness, but I've been mugged several times, and so has my mom and grandma.
Someone who preys on defenseless old ladies should be impaled and vivisected on a public square. Our elders are to be revered and respected since it was by their strife and suffering that we can now live comfortably and in a free world.
If only people were allowed to arm and defend themselves with overwhelming force, under a certain very restricted set of conditions of course, some fine examples would be set on a daily basis which would keep this sort of thing down to a minimum. I hear that in parts of the USA you are indeed allowed to kill your attackers in self-defense, but in portugal the definition of "self-defense" implies that you are only justified in using force against someone if they are better armed than you. So you can slit the throat of someone who pointed a gun at you (good luck!), but you cant shoot someone who has a knife to your throat. Plus we dont have the death penalty or even perpetual imprisonment. You can kill half the people in portugal and still only get 20 years.

Wow, not sure I want to run into the person who kills half the people in Portugal let alone try to arrest them.