Witnesses Use Bat and Hammer to Stop Rapist

8-16-2012 Tennessee:

A woman with a baseball bat and a man with a hammer attacked a suspected rapist Tuesday morning in South Memphis to help a teenaged victim.

Police have charged 25-year-old Lorenzo Kirk with rape, after witnesses described him and told police in which direction Kirk had run.

A woman who goes by “Mecka” said her son first pointed out something strange while they were on the way to school just after 7:00a.m.

“He was saying, Momma, look at that boy taking that girl into the bushes. I said, what boy taking what girl in the bushes? And when I looked to my left, I slammed my breaks,” Mecka said.

Near the corner of South Parkway East and South Main, Mecka stopped and yelled out the window to the girl.

“I said, baby do you know him? She said, no ma’am, please, please help me.”

Mecka’s son then helped to get an aluminum baseball bat out of their trunk.

Mecka said, “I got that bat and I went to work on him. I’m talking about, I was swinging. I know I was hitting him hard. He wouldn’t let her go! Then Sam came.”

Mecka and Samuel Pigues happened to know each other. Sam was on the way to work, when he pulled up right behind Mecka.

When he realized a man was trying to rape a teenaged girl, he jumped into action too. He said he looked for any heavy object in the car and found a hammer.

“I went over there and I first yelled at him. He didn’t pay me no mind, he just kept doing what he was doing. And I plucked him with that hammer; he kept doing what he was doing. I plucked him again; he jumped up. He must have felt that one.”

The hammer was no more than a foot long, but Sam said it did the trick. He used the flat side of the hammer to strike the suspect’s back.

Both Mecka and Sam said they didn’t hit the suspect in the head or face. They weren’t trying to kill him, but just wanted him off the girl.

It was a particularly horrifying moment for Mecka, who became a rape victim herself when she was 13.

“Only thing that was going through my head was me picturing myself laying on that ground,” she said.

While the nightmare of old memories never stops, Mecka was at least able to stop it from happening to another girl.

Sam told News Channel 3 he knew he had to help, because it could have easily been one of his own children or grandchildren.

Both Sam and Mecka said they believe people ought to work together to protect their community. ..Source.. by Natasha Chen