EXCLUSIVE: Woman considers leaving Bay Area after suffering concussion from attack in SJ

By Zach Fuentes

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    SAN JOSE, California (KGO) — A San Jose woman was robbed in the middle of the afternoon by two men. The victim says she hopes by sharing her story, the suspects will be caught and others won’t have to experience the terror she did.

It happened on Mulcaster Court in a South San Jose neighborhood- a neighborhood that homeowners say is typically quiet and rarely gets much traffic.

“I thought that you know, two scenarios,” Ms. Nguyen said of her thoughts in the moments of the attack, “‘You’re gonna take my car, or I’m not going to get out of here alive.'”

Nguyen, now suffering from a concussion, was robbed Tuesday at 2:30 in the afternoon.

Nguyen did not want to give her full name, still terrified after the ordeal that all started when she went to visit her sister after first stopping at the bank.

She said she got out of her car on this street and went over to the passenger seat to get her laptop and a bag she had brought for her sister.

“I opened the door, I landed my laptop bags on the seat, and I grabbed the bag for my sister,” she said, “And then I saw a young, assumed to be, young guys approaching.”

She said she thought they were neighbors who were coming up to talk, instead they grabbed the crossbody bag she had over shoulder.

“I said, ‘Go, go’ and started kicking, I kicked him repeatedly,” she said, “He couldn’t get too close to me.”

That man went away, but Nguyen was still not safe, as another car pulled up in the middle of the street and another person came and tried to grab her purse.

Nguyen fell backwards again, hitting her head and also accidentally starting her car alarm.

“I think maybe I fell on the key or something,” she said, “I think that’s the one thing that saved me.”

The suspects ran off with her laptop and a bag of groceries and other items.

From a living room window, a neighbor, who did not wish to be named, saw the whole thing unfold- she says in less than a minute.

“I saw a car parked in the middle of the street, with the passenger and the backseat of the passenger door open and there were two guys running around. One was with his full face covered in a ski mask,” the neighbor said, “Something happened behind the car. It looked like they were fighting or something and then they were running away with a bunch of stuff in their hand and they sped out of the street.”

San Jose police say it appears to be no hate-related connection but warn everyone that criminals will often try to distract before attacking

“Oftentimes, these criminals are going to use a ruse to come up to somebody and appear like they’re going to ask you a question or compliment you, perhaps on your shoes or your car or your vehicles, some kind of distraction measure,” said Officer Steven Aponte with the San Jose Police Department, “In this occasion, that’s basically what happened.”

Though the only information about the suspects at this time is that they are two men, detectives ask anyone with any information to come forward.

After the attack, Nguyen says she and her husband have revisited a possibility she’s resisted until now: leaving the Bay Area.

“I always hesitated,” she said, “But after this, I don’t know, maybe I’ll reconsider.”

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