Don’t mess with Mama bear. That’s one of the takeaways from this assault on a mother of three by a faux Big Apple taxi driver. The back story [via pix11.com]: “Police said the 26-year-old woman and her children — ages 1, 3, and 5 — were picked up about 2:45 a.m. Wednesday allegedly by Vargas, who claimed to be a cab driver, on 207th Street in Manhattan. When they arrived at their destination in the Elmhurst section of Queens, the driver was caught on camera attacking the woman. Police said he was trying to sexually assault her. As the woman fought back and tried to escape with her children, the attacker elbowed one of the children and tossed another out of the car before fleeing.” You caught the time, yes? Which raises a few questions . . .

Who in their right mind gets into a non-company cab at 2:45am in New York City? What mother would do that with her three small kids?

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not blaming the victim. She may have been desperate to get her kids home. The “livery” may have been her only option, preferable to staying out on a city street at that ungodly hour. And who knows what kind of situation she was leaving?

I’m simply pointing out that, A) nothing good happens after 2am, and B) common sense situational awareness requires some hard decision making before your safety options become limited and especially after. Anyway . . .

A gun would have come in handy here. While the driver literally threw the child out of his car, it’s equally possible that he could have driven off with the child inside. I’m not sure of the deadly force laws in The People’s Republic of New York, but here in Texas you’re allowed to shoot someone in the act of committing forcible kidnapping.

More to the point, the mom in question had very few options to “convince” Pedro Vargas to cease his attack – which looks a lot more like an attempted kidnapping of the mother than a simple [if there is such a thing] sexual assault. And it looks like she had the time/space to draw a weapon.

Dare I suggest she may have been able to hold Vargas at gunpoint after her children were outside the vehicle? Not that I’d recommend it, but it could have been a possibility if she’d been tooled-up. If there hadn’t been video evidence, Vargas may have escaped to attempt to assault/kidnap/rape again.

Thankfully, this incident ended well – without a firearm. But it illustrates the importance of having a gun for self-defense. To which the antis would say, if she’d had a gun Vargas may have taken it away from her and shot her an/or a child.

Have a look at that unarmed Mom’s actions. Do you think that would have happened?

[h/t DrVino]

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34 COMMENTS

  2. There are places in NYC where yellow cabs will not go at night. In those areas, gypsy cabs are the only option. For the most part, the gypsy cabs and drivers do their jobs just fine, and in some places have authority to cruise for passengers like yellow cabs. One such company used the motto: “We go anywhere. We’re not yellow!”

    Also, NYC operates 24/7, and there are lots of people out and about at all hours who are doing normal things. The old adage that no good happens after 2am does not apply in NYC although it probably does apply to Texas.

    And Sin City is Las Vegas, not NYC, which is not known by that moniker.

    • I used to live in a “Big City” and nothing good happens after 2am. Robbers, muggers, rapists, and drunk drivers that are getting tossed out at closing time are the after 2am crowd. Besides drunks, the rest are out because they have a better chance of escaping law enforcement under cover of darkness. This is every large city in the world, more crimes happen after dark. It’s a fact. It has probably been that way since Babylon, Rome, etc.

      My sister lives in Brooklyn and she doesn’t go out at night anymore. Want to know why? She left a bar around 2:30am a few years ago with a friend and they got mugged on the way home. Other cities might be more dangerous but NY is always in the top ten. I always find it funny that some of the most dangerous cities are also the hardest to obtain a carry permit or even purchase a firearm. This story is scary as hell. I doubt this woman will go out after dark again, at the very least not with her children. I’m just glad the kids and her are okay. Until everyone can carry the criminals will continue to prey on the unarmed and weak, just as they have since the dawn of civilization.

      • After watching the video again, it almost looks like she is being thrown out of the cab. He pulls her out of the front seat after removing one kid from the back. It also looks like when he goes to remove the other child she actually closes the door. He only pushes her away from the looks of things. He might be a dirtbag concerning his treatment of the children. I’m wondering if she said she wasn’t going to pay so she got tossed, a common thing in the city. Her kids were out of the car and could have possibly been hurt, so why did she pursue and attack him when he got back into car and tried to leave?This might be something altogether different gentlemen.

        Also, why is the video cut?

  3. I agree that nothing good happens on the street at that hour. But opiniong about her reasons without any more info is weak. Maybe a dozen plainly marked yellows had already passed her up prior to the predator stopping.

    did anyone else note the guy that walked thru the footage at the start of the vid? Did he attempt to help what was plainly a bad situation? Did he even do the cell phone 911 thing?

    Reminds me of the young man that used to relate, with some relish, the story of how he and a bunch of other people stood by and watched a pimp beat a woman to death. He quit being proud of that story when he told it in front of me.

    • Reminds me of the time I stopped a guy from kidnapping and killing his girl friend because she was trying break up with him. I didn’t need to get physical or use my gun.

      Why any “man” would simply walk by a woman getting assaulted by some ….guy is incomprehensible to me.

  4. I’m on my phone…did they arrest him? I only see the word attempted sexual assault/kidnapping. Was he successful in anything?

  5. He may have been posing as an Uber driver – an alternative to the lousy taxi service in NYC. Either way, Mom and her kids were lucky.

  6. sexual assault (violent rape) is usually considered a safe bet for self defense in the courts.

    • Usually. But this is NYC, the greatest bastion of nanny-statism in the country, and a place where leftism (and presumably its inherent bleeding heart-ness) is alive and strong. Most places in urban CA would convict you of murder for using deadly force, even if you stopped a serial child murderer/rapist/necrophiliac/cannibal in the act of shooting up a nursery. THAT’S how stupid the people there are, and how strongly they buy that shit that “violence is never OK!”. I can’t imagine NYC is much different, though I’ve never been there personally.

  8. NYC is The Big (Rotten?) Apple, not Sin City. That’s Las Vegas (and a series of terrible movies).

  9. +1 Ralph. And on another note I saw on yahoo how Motley Fool solved the .22 ammo shortage. LOL 🙂

  10. I saw that on the news, my bride near threw me out of the house I was jumping up and down yelling “why doesn’t she SHOOT him?” so loud. If reporters did their job, that would be a stock question, every time. “Why didn’t you shoot him?” “Officer, is it known why she didn’t shoot him?” Lordy that would be fun.

    And RF, you say nothing good happens after 2 AM, and you claim to be from Austin? I call BS.

  11. New York Penal law, Article 35 defines when force, up to and including deadly physical force, may be used.
    The acronym we are taught, “DR BARKS” , highlights when the use of DEADLY PHYSICAL FORCE may be used. Deadly force may be used to stop the following:
    Deadly physical force
    Robbery
    Burglary
    Arson
    Rape
    Kidnapping
    Sodomy
    Hope this helps

  12. TL:DR Sorry, I’m with Robert on this one- life choices and the 3 S rule. Find a day shift if thats what it comes to…

    Yeah, I’ve been in NYC, and out after 2AM.
    Cant think of anywhere I’d want to be on the street in Manhattan, with three toddlers,

    where she was picked up, per the article- 207th (University Heights?) has 4 times the national median, for violent crime,
    http://www.neighborhoodscout.com/reports/12722555/#crime

    nor would I be that comfortable getting dropped off in Elmhurst, where she was going in Queens, at 2:30AM, across the street from the homeless shelter…

    http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/queens/protesters-homeless-residents-pan-american-hotel-clash-community-meeting-article-1.1851284

    Broadway and Elmhurst? Looks like subsidized housing projects along there…just sayin’
    http://www.neighborhoodscout.com/ny/queens/51st-queens/
    Crime rate there is only 2 times the national median.

    http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2014/08/22/police-man-knocked-woman-down-tried-to-rape-her-in-elmhurst-queens/

    I wonder how long it will be before NYC and the surrounding area starts to look like the David Dinkens days…

    http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2014/08/26/police-union-leader-blasts-mayor-bill-de-blasios-dnc-bid/

    I defer to Ralph our resident NY expert, to keep us up to date on the inside scoop, but I wonder how long before the news comes out that DeBlasio and the Police Commish are cooking the books, prior to the DNC 2016 Convention…

  13. He dropped her off at her destination…sound like kidnapping to you? If he was trying to sexually assault her…why would he take her to her home or wherever it was she wanted to go, on a busy street with pedestrians and cameras present? Why was he so delicate with the first child that he put out of the car only to be so rough with the other one? Could it be that she started the whole altercation by refusing to pay the fare? Why, if he was trying to assault her, did he not beat the crap out of her and do what this headline claims he was trying to do? Looked like he got the worst of it…and the kids who were tossed around a bit. Why were his hazard lights on if he was a criminal fleeing the scene of a crime? I’m not saying he is an angel. He should not have been rough with the kids, but I saw him take one child out of the car and the woman got out with another child and when he tried to open the back door to remove the last child, she blocked him. It looked like, she told him she couldn’t pay so he was throwing them out and she got pissed off and made up the sexual assault claim. I will wait for the trial and his side of the story but he is likely up the creek given that he has a record. And another thing, the elbow to the five year old was accidental when he was trying to pull the mother out of the way.

    • Good points.

      Especially when you look at the Google street level view across from the homeless shelter, formerly the hotel. There would be plenty of vehicle traffic and we saw at least pedestrian. Not a likely place for a sexual assault.

      I think there is more to this story.

  14. Watched it again. On first viewing I believed what I was told to see. On second viewing give it a headline, “woman beats up cabbie who does his best to remove kids and leave the scene.”
    Then see what you see.

  15. It’s 207th street. There really aren’t that many yellow cabs up there. There are a lot of private random unmarked cars driving around being car service. I definitely understand why she thought she was getting in one of these private cabs. And no, I highly doubt shooting him would fly in NYC. Unless there’s threat to life to either you or someone near her. Which someone could argue was apparent in this situation.

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