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One citizen steps up:
A Samaritan in action
of TheColumnists.com
If you were walking along the street and saw someone knock a woman down, then snatch her pocketbook and run, what would you do?
That happened earlier this month to a retired professor whom I know. What made her case different than millions of other muggings is one passerby who saw the assault. He took off after the robber, and kept following him until the police came.
Not everybody would have made that choice. It took courage and a cool head. Who was the passerby and why did he decide to help? I wanted to know. So I called him.
The good Samaritan turned out to be Mathew Fillmore, a junior at the College of Charleston. At 24, Fillmore is older than most of his classmates. He went to college in Virginia through his sophomore semester, then took two years off to do construction work as a carpenter.
The morning of the assault Fillmore left his house to finish a remodeling job in downtown Charleston, S.C. He was in his car when he heard a woman scream.
"I saw a man trying to get her 'fanny' pack," Fillmore said.
The man, who weighed over 200 pounds, thought he had an easy target. The lady, who was on her way to church, was a senior citizen, only 5-feet-2-inches in height and weighed 130 pounds. But she didn't give up easily.
"She was putting up a fight," Fillmore said, "trying to hold on to her pocketbook. He knocked her down and started kicking her in the face. I cut off my ignition, took out my keys and jumped out of my car."
He bolted so quickly, he left the car half in and half out of a parking space.
Fillmore said: "The man got the pocket book and started running. I didn't know if I should stay with the woman or chase him. He was getting away. I decided to go after him.
"I made as much commotion as I could as I ran. I yelled, 'A woman has been robbed. Please help her.'"
People walking by started to pull out their cell phones and dial 911.
"The man was ahead by about half a block. I kept running. I followed along for two or three blocks. Then, I lost him.
"I looked around a bit. I saw a fence and looked over it. He was on the other side, crouching down. I yelled, 'Police are on the way.'
"The guy was pretty much out of breath. He had taken off his jacket, cap, and heavy construction boots. He dropped the pocketbook on the street before he climbed over the fence. I guess he thought I would stop chasing him if he did that."
Fillmore gave the pocketbook to a woman. The $30 the robbery victim had in it was still there. Meanwhile, the man took off again, holding his boots as he ran. Fillmore went after him.
"Now, he's running in his socks, holding his shoes. But he's not going full speed anymore. He's lost a lot of his stamina. I'm behind him but keeping a safe distance away."
Fillmore, who is six feet tall and weighs 160, played on his high school basketball team. He is still fit. But he said he never thought about making a citizen's arrest.
"I wasn't going to try to tackle him or anything like that. I didn't want to get physically involved. I wanted the police to do that. I just kept talking to him as I followed. 'Police are on the way. I saw what you did. I'm not going to let you get away.'"
Fillmore did not think the man was armed. "If he had a gun or a knife, I thought he would have used it in the robbery."
But then, the man stopped. "I think he was deliberating whether to attack me. So I called out, using profanities. I was trying to intimidate him so he wouldn't advance."
It worked.
"The man moved on again. But he was down to a walk, totally out of breath."
A few minutes later, police drove up and arrested him. He did not put up a fight.
Fillmore said the chase took about five or 10 minutes. Police charged the man, identified as Alonzo Ward, 51, with robbery and assault. Ward said he needed $170 to pay off gambling debts.
He was on probation with a record of four convictions, three for violent robberies. A judge set bail at $500,000--the highest bond in memory for this offense, according to court observers.
Fillmore, who is working his way through college, said he does not think of himself as a hero.
"People in the military who fight every day are heroes. I was just at the right place at the right time. I'd like to think that anybody in my shoes would have done the same thing."
The woman who was robbed suffered a broken nose and needed four stitches in her lip where one of her teeth was pushed through. But she is up and about now after being treated and released from the emergency room and seeing her dentist.
Too often, we read about crimes where people look the other way. They don't want to get involved. Here we have someone with the courage to help out. That makes us proud. We need to recognize these unsung heroes. More than that we need to emulate them--do as they do--if the occasion presents itself.
The professor had a different tack.
"I'm going to be fine due to his courage
and clear-thinking," she said. "But we make a mistake
if we come away feeling good about this. You can't depend on
people like Michael solving the problem of violence in our society.
We need to look at the larger
picture and find solutions to reduce the level of violence on
our streets."
There is a footnote. The woman and her husband will spend some private time with Fillmore. They have invited him to dinner.
©2008 by David Zinman. The Zinman caricature is ©2001 by Jim Hummel. The illustration is from IMSI's Master Clips Collection, 1895 Francisco Blvd. E., San Rafael, CA, 94901-5506, USA. This column first posted Jan. 21, 2008.
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