Apr 16, 2009 6:21 pm US/Eastern
Woman Robbed & Dragged At Pembroke Lakes Mall
PEMBROKE PINES (CBS4) ―
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This video shows the robber dragging his victim at the parking garage of the Pembroke Lakes Mall.
CBS
Barbara Epstein is jovial and happy-go-lucky by nature, but an attack by a man with a gun at a South Florida mall parking garage threatens to transform her.
"The worst part is you lose your sense of freedom that you can get in your car and go where you want to go and you don't have to worry about who might be lurking in a parking lot," Epstein said. "And now it's gonna be on my mind."
Epstein walked out of the Macy's store at the Pembroke Lakes Mall on Thursday, April 9. It was almost 4:30 in the afternoon. As she placed her shopping bags in her trunk, she noticed a young man walking around, like he was waiting for someone. A moment later the man stood face to face with her.
"He looked me in the eye and he said, 'Give me your purse,' and at the same time he pulled a gun from his gun belt and I looked at the gun and I looked at him and I said, 'No way,'" Epstein told CBS 4's Carey Codd.
She said "No way," because Epstein had been mugged ten years before and could not believe it was happening again. Before she knew it, the man with the gun grabbed her purse and she went along with it. Surveillance video from inside the parking garage shows Epstein lunging forward, then falling to the ground and being dragged by the armed robber.
"(The purse) was on my shoulder in a way that it wasn't gonna be released unless I went with the purse," Epstein said. "Everything was hurting and I didn't have any way to stop what was happening. I didn't know how long he was gonna drag me. I didn't know if he was gonna shoot me when he got between those cars. I didn't know what was going to happen."
Surveillance video shows Epstein laying in the parking garage. She suffered cuts and bruises on her hands, arms, head and back. When the attack occurred, she was recovering from a broken pelvis.
The armed bandit got away with Epstein's purse and the cash, credit cards, ID's and cellphone inside. Pembroke Pines Police believe the armed robber got into a burgundy Nissan Altima driven by a white female. The pair's photos were captured by surveillance cameras.
Epstein said the man used her credit cards several times, including a stop at a clothing store, a coffee shop and a fast food restaurant.
"It was sickening to me thinking he could just do that to me and 20 minutes later they're sitting at Taco Bell and eating," Epstein said.
Epstein knows her physical wounds will heal. Her emotional scars will linger, however. She hopes someone in the community recognizes the man who attacked her and turns him in before someone else suffers at his hands.
"The fact that someone so young is running around threatening people with a gun makes me worry for every woman shopping at the mall," Epstein said.
If you have any information about the man or woman police are searching for, contact the Pembroke Pines Police Department at 954-431-2200 or Broward Crimestoppers at 954-493-TIPS.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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