Two people tackled a woman near her home in the Capitol Hill neighborhood, but she fought them off and her neighbors ran to her rescue.
Roberta Rothstein was defiant in the face of the attack in the neighborhood she has called home for more than 30 years. She said she won't let someone rob her of her sense of security.
"Damn it, that's going to change!" she said. "I'm not gonna make somebody coming up to me make me afraid. I'm not. That's not gonna happen."
Rothstein, a dancer who owns a studio in the area, was getting out of her car late Tuesday when someone approached her.
"He said, 'Ma'am, do you have the ti--' and then reaches across me. It was very fast," she said.
Before she knew it, Rothstein was wrestling him.
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"I start screaming, 'No, no, no, no, no!'" she said.
Rothstein is just 5 feet tall, but she was able to fight him off.
Then, her neighbors ran to her rescue.
"All of the sudden I have three neighbors down the street like, 'What? Where did he go? There? Ok!' Everybody's running," she said.
Police caught one of the people who attacked her. The other is still out there.
Rothstein, who was born and raised in New York City, said she stands by her split-second decision to fight back.
"My philosophy is, if I don't see a gun, I'm holding on to my stuff," she said.
Rothstein said the mugging -- the fifth in her lifetime -- doesn't make her afraid, though it left her with a black eye and bandages on a few of her fingers.
She thanked the people to came to her aid.
"My neighbors are wonderful," she said.
