71-Year-Old Mannford Woman Hurt After Stepping In To Help Stop 2 Shoplifters

A 71-Year-Old Grandmother has a black eye after she was punched in the face at Atwoods in Sand Springs while trying to stop two shoplifters. 

Peggy Swineheart says one of the shoplifters had a store employee in a chokehold, so she stepped in to help.

"She had him in such a tight chokehold, I really thought he was going to die,” said Swineheart.

Swineheart stopped at AtwoodsTuesday night to buy a new smoker. She says while she was there she noticed two women carrying dozens of coats.

"I thought well that's weird, but then when I got to the checkout stand I could see the manager was upset and he said they're not going to get by with that again,” said Swineheart. 

Peggy says the employees started to block the door to try to stop the women from leaving and an employee knocked the clothes out of her arms. Peggy says the woman then started punching the 18-Year-Old employee and the other woman had him in a chokehold, so Peggy went over and started hitting one of the women trying to help.

"Finally she let go and she came right for me and boom boom,” said Swineheart. "She knocked me down on the ground and I was bleeding right here on my forehead."

Sand Springs Police say the two women then left the store and got into a black car. Deputy Chief Todd Enzbrenner says they were trying to steal about $1,200.00 worth of clothes

"They were able to get in the car and drive off, they didn't get any merchandise though," said Enzbrenner. “One of the suspects was kind enough to leave her phone behind.” 

"I'm just glad it turned out okay,” said Swineheart. “If she would've had a knife or a gun, we would've been in trouble."

Peggy just turned 71 and recently had cataract surgery. She says she still has some bruising from the surgery and from a recent fall. Peggy says she’s just thankful she and the employee are both okay. 

“You don't think about it, you just react and that's all I knew to do, just beat on her until hopefully, she'd let go,” said Swineheart. “It was the right thing to do. I would hope someone would do that for me or my grand kid.”

Police say one of the women left her phone behind, so they are working to identify her from that, but they say if you know who they are call 918-245-8777.