January 21, 2003
From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:Historical Allusion Missed By Gunman
UPDATE: Good God! What is happening to this peaceful university town?
Some news of Suburban "Packs not Herds" in The Princeton Packet (article not on-line). An article describes an unusual carjacking in Princeton yesterday, right on the corner of the University campus:
Rosemary O'Connell, 61, of New York City parked her gray 1992 Mercury Topaz sedan on Nassau Street outside CVS...While Ms. O'Connell sat in her unlocked car applying the makeup at 12:30PM, a man in his 30s entered the car and calmly told her to stay in the car, Lt. Reading said.
The woman, fearing the man had a weapon, jumped out of the car while he was still talking to her...
...Several pedestrians and motorists tried to prevent the man's escape in the car, but to no avail, Lt. Reading said.
An off-duty Trenton fire-fighter jumped in front of the vehicle but was knocked out of the way...
...R. William Potter, an attorney, was heading back to his Nassau Street Office when he heard the victim screaming for help. He ran alongside the car up to Vandeventer Avenue, trying to flag it down...
..A dump truck tried to cut off the fleeing car, but the driver maneuvered around the truck.
OK, so they're a suburban pack. They made the old college try and failed, but good for them for trying!
This hardly matches the best Princeton crime story of all time, in which an elderly historian stands up to a gun-wielding bank robber:
Princeton had an armed bank robbery in 1999 - right where yesterday's carjacking took place. One of the burglars jumped into the car of a well-known local man, Lucius Wilmerding -
News articles reported that the remaining robber fled with another hostage and met up with an accomplice in the parking lot behind the bank. Racing from the scene, the two crashed their car into a stone wall about one mile north of Nassau Street and one block from where Lucius was escorting his friend to the car. The two robbers separated on foot, leaving their hostage in the wrecked car.Brandishing a machine pistol, one of the robbers encountered Lucius at his friend's home. When the gunman burst into the rear seat of Lucius's car, Noelle Veitch astutely jumped out of the car's front seat, ran back into her home, and called the police. The gunman climbed into the front seat of the car and ordered Wilmerding to drive back up Witherspoon Street as fast as possible--at over 70 m.p.h. Lucius, angered by his assailant's rudeness, hit the brakes, whereupon the gunman stamped on the accelerator and threatened to kill him.
Wilmerding, an eminent historian, responded by quoting Admiral Dewey at Manila Bay: "You may fire when ready, Gridley." This historical allusion fortunately was missed by the gunman, who pistol-whipped Lucius across the face and threw him out of the car near Forer's Drug Store, located close to the Princeton Medical Center.
Lucius received a black eye from the pistol-whipping and a concussion when his head struck the pavement. He was hospitalized for three days, with a minor skull fracture and abrasions on his arm. Curiously, his assailant also threw Lucius's cane out of the car. Now, Lucius says he feels "pretty much back to normal, bothered only by occasional bouts of double vision." In December he made a trip to England to meet with some wartime friends.
Don't you love it?!
Sorry 2nd amendment devotees, no stories of armed citizens (in NJ? get serious).
One thing about this story doesn't seem right - a '92 Mercury Topaz? If you've been to Princeton, you'd know its chockablock with new Beamers, Mercedes and other expensive rides. What gives?
The last carjacking in Princeton seems to have been in 1999.
TO: Jane Galt
RE: The Packs of Lincoln, Nebraska
Sometime in the mid-to-late 70s, I don't recall the incident from first had experience, I'd already graduated, someone tried to hold up the Pizza Hut a few blocks off campus.
The patronage, en masse, stood up, chased the guy out of the restaurant, ran him to ground, beat the hell out of him, picked his limp carcass up, walked down the street with him, until they found a police officer...
...at which point they turned the cretin over to the 'law'.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
Wow, what a bubble the campus is; this was the first I heard about it, and it happened less than a mile from where I live.
Princeton has plenty of older cars; it's just that expensive ones tend to jump out at you when you first get here.
Posted by: Ray on January 22, 2003 12:59 AMHey, firearms aren't the only way to deal with creeps.
The real victory starts with refusing to be a victim. :-)
Posted by: Dean Esmay on January 22, 2003 5:17 AMIf one or more of the Pedestrians were allowed to excercise properly their 2nd Amendment, that hijacker would not have gotten away. : )
Posted by: Nick M. (Arrogant Rants) on January 22, 2003 9:20 AMIt's a sign of the times that we hear local news online before we hear it locally. The real surprise in this story is that anyone could get away through Princeton's impenetrable traffic.
That "Fire when ready, Gridley" remark is priceless though.
Posted by: Brian on January 22, 2003 10:55 AMcome on.. you gotta side swipe the crook!!!
he's probably not wearing a seat belt and on the passenger side... so get some speed up and then try to put a telephone pole where he is...
othe things that work well are putting the car into a spi and running head on into a wall or tree... if he's unbel;ted he should experience some serious centripetal force that sends him flying..
Posted by: Libertarian Uber Alles on January 23, 2003 2:55 PMChuck's story makes me wonder if it's a college town thing. Lincoln isn't just a college town - it's got the state capitol, among other things - but it's a big college in a not too large city. I can certainly see that with college students. (I once knew Lincoln very well - my grandparents lived most of their adult lives in a duplex at the corner of 20th and M.)
Young men are biologically disposed towards taking insane risks, so the Pizza Hut robbery story is not at all surprising. That's where you'll find packs of young male college students, with probably just enough young women to give them a reason to show off. (And when I was an undersized 17 year old college student, I stared down a 6'8" future mass murderer. Repeatedly, until he learned to not even think about bullying me.) But 60-ish professor types taking on carjackers? Is excess testosterone catching?
Posted by: markm on January 24, 2003 10:06 PMComments are Closed.