83-YEAR-OLD CANES WOULD-BE ROBBER
By Jim Carney Beacon Journal staff writer, [email protected].
Akron Beacon Journal, OH
Published on Tuesday, Sep 11, 2007
Akron man saves wife from purse snatcher
Using a wooden cane, an 83-year-old man who once fought with the Soviet
Army against the Nazis in World War II battled with a would-be thief
to protect his wife on the streets of Akron over the weekend.
Martiros Vaganovich Budagyan grabbed his cane and hit the robber
on his back after the robber tried to steal the purse of his wife,
Yekaterina Budagyan, 73, in the 600 block of West Market Street
shortly before 4 p.m. Friday.
According to the couple’s son, Vito Budagyan, 48, of Fairlawn,
his parents had gone to a bank and pharmacy at Highland Square and
were walking back to their apartment in the neighborhood when the
incident happened.
Eyewitnesses described the suspect as a 36- to 38-year-old black
man, wearing a red, yellow and orange shirt and dark jeans and a
black do-rag.
"The guy was following them from the bank and maybe from the pharmacy,"
their son said.
"He pushed my mother from behind and tried to get her handbag and
Dad tried to take care of my mother."
Both of his parents fell to the ground, the son said, but his mother
still held on to her purse.
"Dad took his cane and hit him and she started screaming and he just
ran away," Vito Budagyan said.
Martiros Budagyan suffered injuries to his right knee and a finger on
his right hand, and Yekaterina Budagyan hurt her nose and scratched
her knees, according to a police report.
Both victims were treated at the scene by Akron
firefighters/paramedics.
Vito Budagyan came to the U.S. in 1992 from Baku, Azerbaijan,
a former Soviet Republic located North of Iran in Southwest Asia,
after the fall of the Soviet Union.
"They left everything," he said of his family’s flight to America. "We
came here with nothing."
His parents, who have been married more than 50 years, arrived in
Akron in 1993.
Neither speaks fluent English, so in an interview, their son spoke
for them.
After the war, during which he was wounded and suffered hearing loss,
Martiros Budagyan worked on the Soviet subway system and Yekaterina
was a homemaker.
Another son, Uri, lives in the area and a third son still lives
in Azerbaijan.
It wasn’t the couple’s first brush with crime in America.
Two years ago, someone stole his mother’s purse as she was entering
her apartment, the son said.
But the Armenian family, in spite of those incidents, has lost no
faith in their new country and loves America.
"They are doing great since they came here," said the son, who works
for Harry London Candy in Green.
When his family arrived, he said, "everybody helped us. It is
absolutely amazing."
Still, it is upsetting that someone would do something like that to
his parents, Vito Budagyan said.
"I couldn’t believe it happened in daylight," he said.
"It could have been worse."