Late 1970s, August, New York City’s Grand Central Station, outrageously hot and humid. My grandmother was on her way home from work. She was about 4’10”, not even 100lbs, in her mid-fifties. This is before backpacks and sling bags were used by office workers, so she was toting a heavy hard-sided briefcase.

A very large man in his late-teens or early-twenties attempted to snatch the briefcase on the train platform. Without breaking stride my grandmother whirled it into a roundhouse that connected with the strong-arm-robber’s temple, knocking him to the ground unconscious in one strike.

At the end of the platform, unseen before now, a uniformed NYPD officer is bent over hugging his sides and laughing himself sick. Enraged, my grandmother marches up to the cop and from her towering 4’10” demands for him to do something.

“Lady, it looks like you took care of it!”

The lady in this video would probably have gotten on well with my grandmother.