You don’t tug on Superman’s cape. You don’t spit into the wind. You don’t pull the mask off that old Lone Ranger, and you don’t mess around with… Crystal*:

Two men are on the loose and a third suspect is in the hospital after an alleged robbery victim fought back.

A woman was approached by three men as she returned home from work in the 3300 block of W. 34th Street around 1 a.m. Friday. The men tried to rob her, but the woman fought back.

“I just heard them saying ‘Shut up, be quiet, don’t say anything’ and the one here had a weapon,” said the victim, Crystal.

She confronted the men with her own personal protection from the front seat of her SUV.

“I always come home late at night, but since I went to the grocery store last night, it was even later,” she said. “He is the one that grabbed at me and when he did, I just reached and turned around and shot and they ran.”

One of Crystal’s bullets struck one of her three attackers.

Her father wanted his only daughter to be licensed to carry so she could protect herself.

“Honestly, I mostly carry it because my dad wanted me to. Now I’m glad I listened,” Crystal said.

The 18-year-old who caught one of the bullets from Crystal’s impromptu “slugs for thugs” giveaway was captured shortly after the attempted robbery. His two accomplices left him him behind and slipped through a hole in a nearby fence to make their (hopefully only temporary) escape. If captured robber Deon Smith has any sense at all he’ll give up the names of his compatriots, and they will soon be joining him behind bars.

Crystal went on to note that things could have easily turned out for the worst, as she was not paying any attention to her surroundings and was completely unaware of her surroundings when the criminals targeted her. She got lucky.

Why did she get lucky?

While it is only informed speculation, it is probable that she was able to turn the tables on her attackers because they probably suspected that their weapon and superior numbers made them a threat that a lone woman late at night simply wouldn’t resist. When she instead came up gun blazing, the stunned robbers instincts for self-preservation kicked in, and they scattered like roaches before the light.

Crystal wants other women to be trained to defend themselves, wants them to be armed, and wants them to be aware, something that she was not.

She never expected something like this to happen to her, but it did.

Now that she’s been through the experience and has come out the other side unscathed, she hopes others will follow her lead, as attacks like this can indeed happen anywhere.

* This story is from early April, but we’re just hearing about it now, and the lessons learned are timeless.