KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- A teenager reportedly tried to carjack a woman in the Northland Thursday, but more than a dozen strangers stepped in and stopped him.
The woman was getting cigar samples out of her car to take to the Outlaw Cigar Company on North 64th Street when the teen attacked her, witnesses said.
"He didn't say anything to her. He just started beating her up," said Kendall Culbertson, a Good Samaritan.
Two people went to her rescue and started to struggle with the
would-be carjacker.
"I'm sitting in the lounge and somebody screams, 'Call 911,' that there's a lady being assaulted in the parking lot, and so, you know, we jumped up and ran out here to see how we could help out, and I recognized that it was my general cigar rep," Culbertson said. "Linda's sitting there screaming. I could see that she had a bloody lip, and like I said, when I went out to help her, I heard the car start, so the first thing I said was, 'Get out of the way,' and right about then, the car shot backwards and really just missed her."
Eventually, Culbertson said, about 15 people surrounded the car.
"You could only get two guys in the car, so nobody else could really help hold the guy down, but there were lots of guys around that were willing to help just as soon as somebody had to bail out," Culbertson said.
Tracy Seib witnesses the ordeal.
"It was very scary, because being alone as a woman and not knowing, something like that could happen in broad daylight, it makes you scared, but then when I saw all these guys coming to her rescue, it made me feel safe, and it made me feel there's still good people out there," Seib said.
The woman was treated at a hospital and released.
The suspect was in custody, but prosecutors hadn't yet filed any criminal charges against him.
