Robbers, BEWARE! Don’t mess with this gutsy granny – she’ll pelt your felonious punk ass with her fierce fruit of justice!
A gutsy 80-year-old great- grandma has foiled a grocery store robbery – by throwing mangoes and apples at one of the thieves.
“She was amazing! If it hadn’t been for her, the guys would probably have gotten away,” said store owner Manual Nogueira, who’s her son-in-law.
Pint-size Otilia Martins swung into action after two thugs entered Manual’s Continental Market in New Bedford, Mass., on July 20. One pointed a .38-caliber gun at the clerk and ordered her to open the cash register.
“When the clerk screamed, my mother-in-law ran to the front of the store, and saw the guy going through the cash register,” Manual told The ENQUIRER.
Without a thought for her own safety, 5-foot-tall Otilia picked up some mangoes and a bag of apples from the counter and hurled them at the robber.
“They hit him on the head and chest,” said Manual. “He stopped going through the cash register and ran out from behind the counter.”
But Otilia wasn’t done. She grabbed the hooligan as he fled, but he smacked her in the face with his gun, knocking off her glasses and ripping open her forehead.
With blood streaming down her face, Otilia chased him and his partner, screaming at them as they ran off.
Manual, 52, was outside the store about 100 feet away when he heard her screams and saw the pair running. Figuring he’d been robbed, he gave chase, and caught one of the creeps two blocks away.
When cops arrived, they found the other bad guy cowering in a nearby building.
Although she suffered a big gash on her forehead, Otilia, a Portuguese immigrant, refused to go to the hospital.
“The paramedics thought she needed two or three stitches,” said Manual. “But she said that she’d just put some peroxide on it. She’s one tough lady.”
Otilia, a widow with three children, eight grandchildren and two great-grandchildren, explained why she tried to stop the robber even though he had a gun.
“I was afraid he was going to hurt the clerk,” she said.
“I’m 80. I’ve lived my life. But the clerk has her whole life ahead of her. I wanted to protect her.
“I looked in my pocketbook for something to throw at him, but I couldn’t find anything. Then I saw the mangoes and the apples and started throwing them.
“I only wished I had something harder to hit him with, like a tire iron. Now that would have really gotten his attention.”
Cops identified the pair as Eduardo Torres- Lopez, 22, and Jesse DosSantos, 32. They’re charged with armed robbery, carrying a dangerous weapon and assault and battery on a person over the age of 60.
“People are calling my mother-in-law a real hero, and she is,” said Manual. “We’re all very proud of her.”
