Woman Speaks After Being Attacked, Robbed In Elevator Of Her Bronx Apartment Building
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- A 71-year-old woman spoke out Tuesday after being punched and robbed in her own Bronx apartment building by another woman.
As CBS2's Andrea Grymes reported, the woman said she was terrified, but she was not going to give up without a fight.
The assailant followed the woman into her building in Morris Park before the attack.
"Oh, it was like I was shaking," the victim said. "My hands were like this - I was crying."
The woman, who did not want to be identified, never imagined that she would be mugged in her elevator.
"It was just the shock of somebody lunging at you; like attacking you," she said.
Police said the attack happened around 7:30 a.m. Saturday in a building near Pelham Parkway and Cruger Avenue in the Bronx.
The victim said she was walking home from the bank and was about to go into the basement door, when the assailant started following her inside the building and into the elevator.
"I said to her, 'What floor?' because I knew," the victim said. "But I had that feeling. I knew something was going to happen."
And it did – almost immediately.
"All of a sudden she lunged at me and she's grabbing my bag. I'm not giving her my bag. We were fighting. I said" 'You're not taking my bag! I need the money! I need the money! Don't do this!' She said 'No!'" the woman said. "And so I punched her. She kicked me in the stomach."
The woman continued: "I'm screaming and saying: 'Help! Help! Help!' No one would open the door, because it's early. So she was coming closer, and I grabbed one of her braids and I ripped it off."
Downstairs neighbor Shawn Grate heard the screams. But he thought it was a couple he usually hears quarreling, not the kind of woman he sees in the hallway.
"She's a very nice lady. She was very sweet," Grate said. "I was disappointed that I didn't go up there and do something about it because of my assumptions."
The elevator ride lasted only seconds. The victim said when the door opened, she rushed to a friend's apartment for help.
She thinks her attacker ran down the stairs and out of the building.
Despite the victim efforts, she said the woman took off with her purse, her wallet, her cellphone, her credit cards, and $45 cash.
Surveillance video shows the suspect taking off with the woman's bag. Police released the video in hopes that someone might recognize the suspect.
The attack has left neighbors on edge.
"l was really, really shocked. I mean, it's scary though," said Shedrach Alenkhe, "because, you know, eaving your wife and kid at home, and then you know, like, when you go to work you wonder, like, are they safe?"
The victim said she was physically OK three days after the attack, but emotionally scarred.
"I'm like a nervous wreck," she said.
The victim said she is never going through the basement or taking the elevator in her building again.
The suspect was described as a black or Hispanic female standing about 5 feet 9 inches tall and weighing about 190 pounds, with long braids.