Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 9, 1990 TAG: 9005090382
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Instead, he got a scolding.
"I told him, I ain't giving you nothing," Mary Campbell said of her encounter with a would-be armed robber.
"And then I told him that he better get out of my face - right now."
Campbell said a look of disbelief crossed the teen-ager's face. And then - apparently deciding that his semiautomatic handgun was no match for Campbell's wrath - the youth walked away.
"I guess I shocked him," Campbell said. "It looked like it frightened him and made him think: `Maybe this lady's crazy.'"
Campbell, who lives in the 1000 block of Rorer Avenue Southwest, said she was especially upset that the incident happened in broad daylight - about 6:30 p.m. - and only a block from her home.
Although she seldom walks the streets of her neighborhood at night, Campbell said she didn't think twice about walking a few blocks to the store for a loaf of bread.
As she was walking down Rorer Avenue, Campbell sensed someone was following her.
She clutched her snap-top purse closer to her side and kept walking.
The youth then walked past her, wheeled around with his gun and ordered her to drop the purse to the sidewalk.
When she refused, Campbell said, the youth "backed off and walked away - kind of fast."
Campbell said it didn't occur to her to be frightened until afterward.
"I didn't think right then," she said. "But after he was walking away I thought: `That boy just pulled a gun on me.'"
by CNB