A phone thief thought he had spotted an easy target when he decided to go after a teen girl’s phone. He’d soon find out he had made a big mistake when the girl’s mother decided to show him who’s boss — and it was all caught on video.
A 50-year-old mother, who didn’t want to be identified, was walking with her 15-year-old daughter in São Vincente — a coastal town in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The younger female was targeted by a phone thief on a bike. The housewife explained that she had taken her daughter out clothes shopping, and they had just finished booking a taxi using an app to take them home when the enjoyable mother-daughter outing took a bad turn.
Her daughter was holding her phone to check the driver’s details when a mugger struck. As was captured on CCTV cameras mounted on businesses in the area, though, the mom wasn’t about to let her daughter be a victim of phone theft. Instead, the fast-thinking mother quickly showed the bicycle-riding bandit that he had picked the wrong pair.
As seen in the CCTV footage, the phone thief forcibly grabbed the schoolgirl’s cell phone as he rode past the teen and her mom while on a bike before attempting to speed away. Rather than let him get away, however, the hero mom chased after him. Not about to let him get away with it, the unnamed mom quickly turned the only thing she had available into a weapon.
With it appearing that the phone thief would be successful in fleeing, the brave mom made a last-ditch effort to stop him, hurling her rolled-up umbrella at the assailant with all of her might as he tried to make his getaway with her daughter’s device. Things only got worse for the guy from there, as can be seen in the video:
Pulling her right arm all the way back over her shoulder before letting go, the mother launched the makeshift missile at the man. The umbrella flew past the crook, but it still thwarted his escape as his bike skidded on the wet road and he lost control.
After being sent sprawling to the ground in the middle of the busy street, one of the mugger’s legs got trapped in his fallen bike giving the two women time to catch up to him — and they didn’t show him any mercy, giving him a well-deserved battering.
“I reacted instinctively. All I was trying to do was to protect my daughter,” the enraged mother recalled, according to Daily Mail. “I was so angry to see her face so scared that I didn’t think about the consequences,” she continued. “She tried to grab her phone back but it all happened so fast. I turned and ran after the guy and threw my umbrella to see if I could stop him from getting away.”
The heroic mom admits that her bravery was fueled by anger. “I was spitting mad. I kept shouting at him while hitting him, ‘don’t you dare steal from my daughter,'” she explained. “Then other people joined in and beat him up too.”
Indeed, within seconds of the pair catching up to the thief, they were joined by locals, who witnessed the ordeal, ran to help restrain the assailant, and laid into him with their fists. Some kicked him while others dragged him by his hoodie as the livid mother continued to batter him with her blue umbrella.
The suspect fought back and was eventually able to break free, but he fled empty-handed. Not only did the fearless mom recover both her 15-year-old daughter’s phone and her umbrella, which was broken in the incident, but the bad guy was also forced to leave behind his bike, flip flops, and his sweatshirt as he fled.
After stopping passing traffic, the mother grabbed her umbrella while her daughter got her phone after the robber allegedly dropped the stolen device when he lost control of his bike. Reflecting on the assault, the intended victim realizes that she got lucky in this situation. “When you’re angry your impulses can get the better of you and you react without thinking,” she said. “Looking back now, it could all have turned out differently if he had been armed.”
Thankfully, he wasn’t — but she was, even if it was only with an umbrella. Hopefully, he learned his lesson and set an example for others who might think about doing something similar. Never underestimate what a mother will do for her child when emotions run high. As the saying goes, the most dangerous place in the world is between a mother and her child.
