Gun-Toting Grandma Stops Would-Be Assailant

A Fort Worth grandmother thwarted her would-be robber Monday when she pulled a pistol from her purse and scared her assailant away.

Jewell Turner, 74, told NBC 5 she was waiting in her minivan outside of her doctor’s office, near the corner of West Magnolia Avenue and 6th Avenue in the city’s Near South Side, when a man tapped on the glass of her driver’s side window.

Turner said she rolled down the window when the man said he needed directions.

“He stood there and we talked for a while, [him] just asking for directions and me giving them to him,” Turner recalled. “Never thought that when I turned my head that that young man would stick a knife to my throat.”

“He said, ‘I don’t want to hurt you, but I want your money. And I will hurt you if I have to,’” Turner said.

Turner said she told the man she only had some pocket change with her – $1.62 she counted after the ordeal – but he demanded what she had in her purse.

It was in that moment, Turner said, that she remembered she came prepared for an encounter such as this.

The widow first thought to pull out the pocket knife she always keeps with her for personal protection.

“It’s an old knife, belonged to my husband,” Turner said.

Instead, Turner remembered that earlier that very day she felt the need to bring her small pistol along with her.

“I seen the gun laying there. And I figured that would work better than the knife,” Turner said. “I just reached down, got the gun and turned around and pointed it to his face. And I told him, I said, ‘You back off, or I’ll blow your head off.’ And his eyes got big and he just backed up and he took off walking down the street like nothing happened.”

“It’s the most devastating thing you’ll ever have in your life. It scares you to death,” Turner said, still scared about her brush with danger. “I don’t want to go through that ever again. And I don’t want nobody else to go through it.”

Turner told NBC 5 she felt taken advantage of by the man, who preyed upon her sense of kindness to help a stranger. What’s more, Turner said, she now fears she will no longer see the good in people.

“This let me know there is a dark side,” Turner said. “I noticed there was a dark side in me, too. Because when I first pulled that gun on him I actually wanted to shoot him. But I stopped and thought about it.”

Turner could not provide a very specific description of her assailant, saying he was a white man, no older than 25 years old with pale skin and sandy blonde hair, wearing a dark-colored hat and a camouflage jacket.

“I just hope they find him before he hurts somebody, or somebody hurts him,” Turner said.