Eighteen-year-old Masina Tupea is a powerlifter and one tough young lady.
She and her family were on a holiday trip to New Orleans when they were getting dinner.
A man ran up on Masina’s mother, punched her in the jaw & tried to take her purse.
She tells the New Orleans Times-Picayune:
“He literally came out of nowhere. He punched my mom square in the jaw, and she went down almost immediately…I needed to protect my family. That’s all I could think about.”
The mugger was unable to pry the purse from the elder Tupea. So he tried to run-off, but Masina was on his tail.
She chase after him, a bystander tripped him. He got up and punched her.
“...when Masina got over the shock of the punch, she realized her father (who asked not to be named in this story) was chasing the attacker around a car. She knew her dad wouldn’t relent in his pursuit, and even though she worried the mugger might be armed, first and foremost Masina wanted him jailed. She got to her feet and cornered him.
“He hit my mom, he hit me and I needed to make sure he was done,” Masina said. “Nobody else was getting hurt tonight.”
The man swung at Masina but missed when she ducked. He fled. She chased him, grabbed him by the back of his shirt and tackled him. His torso fell under a van. She pinned his legs so he couldn’t escape while a crowd of about 40 onlookers watched and her mother called the police.
“He was telling me to let him go. I was like, ‘Shut up. You’re not going anywhere,’” Masina said. “I kept repeating, ‘You messed with the wrong family.’””
Po-Po arrested Augustus Taylor, 36, for the purse snatching and two counts of simple battery.
No surprise, he has a long criminal rap sheet.