From the Times Union, 4/14/2011, in a neighborhood on the other side of the tracks from Springfield....
QuoteThings just didn't pan out for whoever invaded 81-year-old Bobby Smith's Jacksonville home Saturday afternoon. In fact, you might say the robber got the point - literally - after the Korean War Navy veteran was through with him. Smith and his caregiver used a pan full of fried potatoes and a pitchfork to drive the attacker away. A compact man with a close-trimmed gray haircut, Smith said he wasn't scared.
"I was angry; I was upset; and I was as mad as all outdoors," Smith said Wednesday. "If I'd had my gun, like I normally would have, I would have shot him because he was in my home. I don't like people hurting my family or my home."
Smith was working in the garden of his longtime home on Phoenix Avenue about 11 a.m. when his 65-year-old caretaker, Luvina Sones, ran out and said someone was in the house. Smith walked into the kitchen and found a man next to the stove with a plastic bag with Smith's "JEA money" and the couple's ID cards in one hand, a gun in the other.
The man told Smith to "gimme what you got" before shoving him to the ground and taking his wallet, according to the police report. That didn't stop Smith, who said he "went back after him." He grabbed the nearest weapon, while Sones grabbed for something else to give him.
"I grabbed the frying pan and hit him upside the head. I knocked his teeth out ... and he went to the floor," Smith said. "There was a pitchfork about six feet away. ... I stuck him."
Hit in the head and stuck in the side, the intruder ran, "bleeding on the way out." He left his white baseball cap behind.
Police searched the area, and the K-9 dog ultimately returned with a gift.
"The cop brought the K-9 back to the porch, and the dog had the wallet in his mouth," Smith said. "He bowed. The dog bowed."
One neighbor told officers he saw the man earlier walking shirtless through another backyard, grabbing a brown shirt off a clothesline and putting it on as he headed toward Smith's home.
Smith said an officer told him he'd never seen anyone fight someone with "a pitchfork and a pan of potatoes."
Good for her!
wow!
Great story, but don't think it should be posted in the Springfield section, lest people think this crime happened here. This isn't even Springfield. It should be moved to the proper section.
Meantime, go grandma and grandpa!
I thought it was in Springfield when I first read about it.
I thought that even after I looked at a map.
Great story, though, no matter which neighborhood.
QuoteThis isn't even Springfield.
close enough, Phoenix Avenue does run through 32206. You could add a section called Phoenix, but then we would have a need to create plenty more. I did at least mention it was across the tracks from Springfield.
Quote from: mtraininjax on April 14, 2011, 01:55:30 PM
QuoteThis isn't even Springfield.
close enough, Phoenix Avenue does run through 32206. You could add a section called Phoenix, but then we would have a need to create plenty more. I did at least mention it was across the tracks from Springfield.
So now neighborhoods are defined by zip codes?
Most people in Springfield don't even know where Phoenix is. It is completely cut off and isn't even that close. I live east of Main Street and my home is closer to the Prime Osborn than the southern tip of Phoenix Avenue. In fact Phoenix Ave runs all the way up to 27th Street.
I'll remember to post something that happens off Cassat Ave in the Riverside/Avondale section next time I see something.
Quote from: CityLife on April 14, 2011, 02:10:46 PM
Most people in Springfield don't even know where Phoenix is. It is completely cut off and isn't even that close. I live east of Main Street and my home is closer to the Prime Osborn than the southern tip of Phoenix Avenue. In fact Phoenix Ave runs all the way up to 27th Street.
really? i realize i'm not representative ov 'most people in springfield', but as far as i'm concerned phoenix may just as well be called springfield as anything else. it's sort ov in between major neighborhoods, until the gentrification had about the same demographics as springfield, and has some nice houses (though admittedly not quite as old). hell, i lived in a former mayor's home on 16th, just off ov phoenix for a few years. never occured to me that i might not've been in springfield.
Quote from: KuroiKetsunoHana on April 14, 2011, 02:51:03 PM
Quote from: CityLife on April 14, 2011, 02:10:46 PM
Most people in Springfield don't even know where Phoenix is. It is completely cut off and isn't even that close. I live east of Main Street and my home is closer to the Prime Osborn than the southern tip of Phoenix Avenue. In fact Phoenix Ave runs all the way up to 27th Street.
really? i realize i'm not representative ov 'most people in springfield', but as far as i'm concerned phoenix may just as well be called springfield as anything else. it's sort ov in between major neighborhoods, until the gentrification had about the same demographics as springfield, and has some nice houses (though admittedly not quite as old). hell, i lived in a former mayor's home on 16th, just off ov phoenix for a few years. never occured to me that i might not've been in springfield.
You are certainly entitled to your opinion, but Uncle Sam and his crew feel otherwise.
Quote from: CityLife on April 14, 2011, 02:10:46 PM
Most people in Springfield don't even know where Phoenix is.
That's pretty laughable. You make it sound like Phoenix is way out towards Maxville or something. I hope that you do realize that it's not that far away. The Eastside(Out East) and Springfield areas are adjacent. I'll bet that the only Springfielders who don't know where Phoenix is at, couldn't have lived there that long, and I'm talkin' like less than three months.
Actually if you look at it, the end of phoenix and 8th street is kinda still springfield so I can get why they listed under Springfield. Its more like in the middle of springfield and the eastside so its hard to say.
Good for them! They had every right to defend themselves and their property.
I'll give up my red hot skillet with fried potatoes when they pry it from my cold dead hands.
Quote from: I-10east on April 14, 2011, 04:50:18 PM
Quote from: CityLife on April 14, 2011, 02:10:46 PM
Most people in Springfield don't even know where Phoenix is.
That's pretty laughable. You make it sound like Phoenix is way out towards Maxville or something. I hope that you do realize that it's not that far away. The Eastside(Out East) and Springfield areas are adjacent. I'll bet that the only Springfielders who don't know where Phoenix is at, couldn't have lived there that long, and I'm talkin' like less than three months.
Yeah, it's an entire 0.2 miles away from 8th/Ionia. Not even close! lol
If Phoenix is Springfield then Murray Hill is Avondale then Jacksonville Beach is Ponte Vedra Beach then San Marco is Philips Highway.
Quote from: peestandingup on April 14, 2011, 09:57:26 PM
Quote from: I-10east on April 14, 2011, 04:50:18 PM
Quote from: CityLife on April 14, 2011, 02:10:46 PM
Most people in Springfield don't even know where Phoenix is.
That's pretty laughable. You make it sound like Phoenix is way out towards Maxville or something. I hope that you do realize that it's not that far away. The Eastside(Out East) and Springfield areas are adjacent. I'll bet that the only Springfielders who don't know where Phoenix is at, couldn't have lived there that long, and I'm talkin' like less than three months.
Yeah, it's an entire 0.2 miles away from 8th/Ionia. Not even close! lol
Tell em , PS up ! ;)