A robber attacked the nation’s oldest full-time park ranger in her San Francisco Bay Area home this week and made off with a coin she received from President Obama, authorities said.
Betty Reid Soskin, 94, who works as an interpretive ranger at the Rosie the Riveter World War II Home Front National Historical Park in Richmond, California, was awoken by an intruder who punched her several times in the face, police Lt. Felix Tan said.
She reached for her cellphone but he grabbed it from her, dragged her out of the bedroom and beat her again, Richmond police said. She was able to crawl away to the bathroom and locked herself inside until the robber left early Monday.
‘I fully expected he was going to kill me,’ Soskin told Bay Area news station KTVU-TV.
‘He doubled up his fist and hit me a couple of times on the sides of my face with all his might.’
She called the encounter terrifying and said the blows bruised her face and split open her lips.
‘Nothing else I could think of was to scream and scream and scream,’ Soskin told the TV station.
While in the bathroom, Soskin said, she grabbed an iron and ‘set it to linen, which is the hottest.’
‘I figured if he would come in I would brand him and that would mark him for the police.’
Police say the thief stole her cellphone, iPad, laptop, camera, jewelry and the coin the president gave her to honor her achievements.
