Tourist's Bloody NY Ordeal

[Aptrgangr]

Tourist's Bloody NY Ordeal

FIGHTS OFF KNIFEMAN ON UPPER EAST SIDE

By JOHN DOYLE and TATIANA DELIGIANNAKIS


BRAVA! BRAVA! Carolina Ottone of Italy sports a badly wounded hand yesterday after battling a thug.

June 18, 2008 -- A 19-year-old Italian tourist was ambushed by a knife-wielding thug as she headed to a party on the Upper East Side - but she managed to disarm the attacker by grabbing his blade with her bare hands and wrestling it away, police said yesterday.
Carolina Ottone, 19, of Como, was at Lexington Avenue and 86th Street at about 11:30 p.m. Monday, when the brutal stranger approached her near a pharmacy.

He had been following her for about two blocks.
"He took his knife outside his pocket and grabbed me from behind," she told The Post.
Then the thug put his left arm around Ottone's throat. But he picked the wrong victim because the fiery Italian teen bravely fought back.
"The only thing I could do in that moment was to try to grab the knife and try to push him away," she said.

She put her hand on the blade and pulled it out of his grasp, disregarding the searing pain.
"I'm just 19, I didn't want to die," she told The Post. "I just did what my instincts made me do. I preferred to be without fingers instead of dying."
Ottone said she put a strong grip on the knife "to make sure he wouldn't slash my throat."
"I really hurt myself. I had surgery for that, not just stitches."
She said that she then tussled with the creep, and eventually wound up tumbling into a pile of garbage. Luckily, the attacker had had enough of her resistance, and fled.

She doesn't know why she was targeted, but fears that the assailant had something on his mind other than robbery.
"He didn't steal anything from me," she said. "I had a purse in my hand. I guess it wasn't his intention to steal anything."
She said the thug whispered something in her ear, but she doesn't know what he said.
Ottone tried to flag down passing cars, but none would stop. But a doorman from a nearby building came to her aid.
"He saw everything, and he helped me, and after 15 minutes, the police came," she said.

She was treated at Lenox Hill Hospital.
"I couldn't feel my fingers anymore," she said. "I was afraid and in shock. I was almost killed."
Ottone has been in the United States since April and was staying at the Upper East Side home of friend Julia Fox, whom she met in Italy.
Fox's father, Thomas, later went to the scene of the crime and obtained a video from the pharmacy that shows the attack taking place. He said he is unhappy with the way that the police have handled the investigation and believes they did not take it seriously at first.
An NYPD spokesman said cops are "working with the victim to solve the crime."

TOURIST FIGHTS OFF KNIFEMAN IN NEW YORK\'S UPPER EAST SIDE - New York Post


Actually this article does not belong in "Europe in the News", still interesting and good to see an European fights back.

[Kernunnos]

Well, a padanese girl to be proud of.

Braa fomna.

[Susi]

The attitude on this continent that I always hear is "give the criminal what he wants and oyu won't be hurt" -_- there's no guarantee, i commend this girl's bravery.

[Arthur Gordon Pym]

...and I heard several times the former and the present-time mayor of New York boasting that criminality drastically decreased in the last decade or so in their city and that the stereotype of a crime-ridden New York was something belonging to history.

[Errigal]

Originally Posted by Marulus

...and I heard several times the former and the present-time mayor of New York boasting that criminality drastically decreased in the last decade or so in their city and that the stereotype of a crime-ridden New York was something belonging to history.

I think it was all relative. Look at how the homicide rate doubled from 1965 to 1971 and then dropped in half from 1993 to 1998:

New York Crime Rates 1960 - 2006

They say it had a lot to do with the Baby Boom demographic moving through criminal life.