A Washington, D.C., woman stood her ground against an assailant armed with a gun when he demanded that she hand over her keys in a brazen attempted robbery in broad daylight.
The woman, identified by WTTG-TV as Iris Bond Gill shouted “No!” at the man, and her refusal to comply appeared to unnerve him.
Bond Gill’s refusal to comply appeared to stall the encounter, until she shouted in an authoritative tone “Shoot me!”
The unusual incident unfolded in the late afternoon of Aug. 23, when Bond Gill stood along 10th Street Northeast and looked into her purse. The gunman, wearing a hooded jacket approached her.
WARNING: The following video contains graphic language that some viewers will find offensive.
They say you never know how you’ll react until you’re in the moment.
This video is making the rounds, showing a woman standing her ground to an attempted armed suspect. I spoke w/the victim today, who’s not encouraging this response. I’ll have her message on @fox5dc @ 4, 5 & 6PM pic.twitter.com/7Bc0uNOA1K— Stephanie Ramirez (@RamirezReports) August 26, 2022
Bond Gill, startled, dropped her bags in the surveillance video posted by WTTG.
“What the f***?” Bond Gill stated and shouted “No!” when she was asked for her keys.
Would you feel safe in the nation’s capital?
The gunman then responded by threatening her, “I’ll shoot you, b****!” and demanded repeatedly “give me your keys.”
When Bond Gill continued to challenge him and refused his commands the gunman fled. She then shouted mockingly to him. “Nothing taken! Take it! Do you want it?” motioning to her fallen bag.
“You know, it’s really complicated to think about now,” Bond Gill told WTTG. “I don’t exactly remember, but I know — I knew I was in danger. And so I just threw off my bag and just prepared to be confrontational.”
She said it didn’t even register at first that the gunman wanted her keys. However, she did realize that she was in danger.
“I’ve seen the video and to be honest, I saw a young man in front of me,” Bond Gill told the station.
“And I saw in him, I think what I’ve seen a lot of young people I’ve worked with over the years. And in some way, I think I went into almost a chastising mode with him as well.”
Bond Gill, who started her career as an educator and is now CEO of a consulting firm in D.C., went on to stress to the media that she hopes people will see what happened and strengthen their communities.
“We need stronger communities. You see the suspect back away when a car comes, but no one stopped to help or was really able to intervene,” she said.
“Gone are the days of having older neighbors that sat on the porch all day and watched and waved to you on when you got home from work,” she added.
“I think in some ways, trying to think about how to preserve this intergenerational neighborhood is so valuable. We’ve lost so much of that in the city with massive displacement.”
“So, I think just having more people around that know each other and that support each other would be really helpful,” she added.
According to WTTG, Bond Gill has been living in Northeast Washington, D.C., for 20 years. She said the trauma from the incident is still very fresh.
Ramirez tweeted in a comment on her first post, “I will say now, the victim told me the hardest part of watching this video was watching herself distracted, not paying attention to her surroundings as she was digging in her bag in the beginning of this video.”
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