LORI PILGER / Lincoln Journal Star | Posted: Monday, November 28, 2005 6:00 pm
An Omaha teenager picked the wrong 76-year-old woman to mess with Sunday afternoon. It’s as simple as that.
Pearl Fritts planned to visit her 95-year-old mother at Lancaster Manor on South Street after church. She stopped behind the nursing home to take care of her recyclables when she heard a quiet, little voice behind her ask if she wanted help.
Pearl politely said no thank you, and that’s when police say the teenager struck her.
“She just slammed my head against that bin,” Pearl said. “I was so shocked.”
Pearl said she’s slow to anger, but instinctively dropped the bags and turned around with her fists up.
“I think she was surprised that a little old, gray-haired lady with glasses would come around swinging,” she said.
Mopping up the blood from a cut on her forehead as long as her index finger, Pearl said she asked the young woman why she did it, and the teen told her she wanted her car.
“Here I am in a fistfight for my car,” she said.
When the teenager — who Pearl said stood a few inches taller, but didn’t weigh more than 100 pounds — realized she wasn’t going to get the car, she ran down South Street.
Pearl drove herself home (she had left her keys and her purse sitting in the car) and called her sister to take her to the hospital. When her sister didn’t answer, she went to her neighbor’s house, holding a blob of bloody paper towels to her forehead. The neighbor gave her a ride.
Pearl said she just knew the officer who took the report wanted to crack a smile when she explained what happened.
Police picked up the teenage assailant, a perfect match for Pearl’s description, at a Little King restaurant nearby.
Officer Katherine Finnell said the 17-year-old from Omaha had run away from a Lincoln treatment center and was looking for a way to get back to Omaha.
As for Pearl, she got a scolding from her doctor on Monday and admits fighting back probably wasn’t the smartest thing she’s done.
She said she's been telling people she hasn’t been in a fistfight since she was a kid, but honestly she doesn’t even remember one then.
“If this never happens again it will be too soon,” Pearl said. “Unbelievable.”
Reach Lori Pilger at 473-7237 or lpilger@journalstar.com.