An elderly woman was on her way to a New Year’s Day church and was forced to fight a group of teen girls during a botched robbery in a Brooklyn subway station. Linda Rosen a 71-year-old retired MTA computer operation worker got off a No. 3 train at Hoyt Street just after 6 p.m. As she walked through the turnstile one of the four girls tried to grab her purse.
She recalls thinking “And then I [said to myself], ‘Oh, no, this is not going to happen today.’” One of the teens told her Oh, you want to fight?” “The first person kept fighting,” Rosa explained. “She punched me in my face and I have my glasses on, and I have a cut on my nose. When she punched me in my face, my glasses flew to the floor.”
Rosa stated, “Meanwhile the other young lady was still trying to distract me to get my pocketbook or go into my purse, to snatch something out of my purse.” The robber settled on stealing a pocket pouch that held Rosa’s ID and medical records “I was still wrestling with the first person,” the woman recalled. “Then I was trying to kick her in between her legs, but my leg wouldn’t stretch far enough, so I believe that’s when I fell. I fell, and then she stomped on me.”
She remembered that she was worried the teens were coming back for more. “I got an impression in me that she was going to stomp me again, but she was going to aim towards my head,” she recounted. “So I got up right away, and with that, I grabbed her braids and twirled them around my right hand, and then I pulled her down. She had her head down. Then the other young lady said, ‘Let her go.’ And I said, ‘Oh, no, I’m not letting her go.’”
“So out of nowhere, I grabbed her hair and twisted it around my left hand,” Rosa recounted. “So I had them both facedown….[like] rams when they’re getting ready to fight.” One of the robbers yelled, “Let them go! Let them go!” but Rosa held on and yelled, “I need assistance! I need assistance!” Rosa was forced to let go and the teens ran away as Rosa yelled for police.
After the encounter, she headed to the nearby Brooklyn Tabernacle Church, where the staff tended to her and called 911. She is thankful she wasn’t injured, “Thank God they didn’t have no weapons,” she exclaimed. “I thank God I didn’t have a heart attack and a stroke and die!” The teens who attacked her are still at large but were captured on security camera footage.
Rosa has already turned the other cheek. “I forgive them. They do not know what they do,” Rosa said graciously. “They don’t know what they did. It’s just teenagers acting foolish.” “It could happen to anybody,” Rosa said of the attempted robbery. “Now we’re seeing seniors getting attacked. Anywhere – it can happen anywhere, any station. You could be walking down the street. You could be crossing the street.”