Child's Scooter Helps Texas Grandma Fight Off Clown-Masked Men With Machete
TEXAS CITY, Texas (CBSDFW.COM/AP) — Police say a Texas woman used her granddaughter's scooter to defend herself against a pair of machete-wielding men wearing clown masks who attempted to rob the woman and her husband.
Police say Aretha Cardinal and her husband, Joseph Nelson, were in the driveway of their Texas City home last week when the masked men approached.
"I'm sitting here [in the driveway of their home] talking to my wife and next thing I know I look up and I see somebody running toward me with this white clown mask on and a machete," Nelson told Houston's KTRK.
Nelson says one of the suspects reached his hand through the truck window and put the the knife to his throat.
Authorities say Nelson wrested away the machete from one suspect while Cardinal grabbed the child's scooter from the driveway and used it to repeatedly hit the other man. Nelson said the men tried to run away but the couple chased them, smashing their vehicle window with the scooter.
"It was really scary, but it was either us or them," Cardinal said.
The men, identified by police as Jose Lugo, 35, and 32-year-old Luis Jimenez, were jailed on aggravated robbery charges and are being held on $100,000 bond each.
The husband and wife weren't injured, but the news wasn't so good for the scooter... Cardinal said she broke it in half beating the attackers.
Texas City is about 40 miles southeast of Houston.
(© Copyright 2019 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
