HIALEAH, Fla., Dec. 22 (UPI) -- An 81-year-old woman managed to fend off a gunman who was attempting to rob her daughter in front of their Hialeah, Fla., home, the daughter said.
The woman, Josefa Lopez, was getting ready to go to a taping of the Spanish variety show "Sabado Gigante" Monday with two friends when the gunman attacked, the South Florida Sun Sentinel reported.
As Lopez's daughter, Teresa Medina, 61, was getting into her Ford Expedition to drive the three women to the show, a man grabbed her and pulled her away from the SUV, Lopez said.
The man kept shouting "Give me" as Medina tried to fend him off. Medina was then pulled to the ground by her hair and kicked and pistol whipped.
"I was worried he was going to do something to my mother," Medina said Wednesday. "I was trying to scream to my mother to run inside the house."
Instead, Lopez got out of the car and went after the gunman. She managed to grab the back of his shirt and tug at him. At one point the gunman shot at her, but missed
"I thought she was dead," Lopez said. "I yelled at [the gunman], 'I am going to kill you, [son of a b----]!' I wasn't myself. To me, she was dead."
The suspect fled the scene with Medina's purse in a brown four-door sedan with another man driving.
Although she acknowledged she could have been killed, Lopez said she would do it again.
"When you see your daughter in trouble," she said, "you have to do something."
