It hasn’t been a great few months for UFC almost-featherweight Anthony ‘Showtime’ Pettis. Most recently, he missed weight for his interim title fight with Max Holloway last weekend and then lost the fight via TKO in the third round. But before that he was having some very unusual troubles. Pettis and his brother live and train out of Milwaukee, not exactly the safest city in America. That became very apparent at the end of October when someone set Anthony’s three sportscars on fire outside his home.
No suspects were found in that case, but at the start of December new security cameras set up on the Pettis property caught footage of two young looking men breaking into his cars. And now those young men are under arrest after trying to pull off a carjacking on the wrong elderly people.
https://youtu.be/xR1AHwCBKfY
Miriam Ben-Shalom is a 68 year old woman and a retired US Army Staff Sergeant, and when the three tried to steal her car at a valet stand as she went into a restaurant, her army and martial arts training kicked in.
“Two old ladies, nice car … easy mark. Guess again!” Miriam Ben-Shalom told FOX 6 Now. “I go around and here, the kid is trying to pull [the valet] away from the car and they were fighting and I realize, ‘this is a carjacking!’ And I went and tackled the kid and put a hold on him. I got up and I put the toe of my boot in a socially significant place. I took some taekwondo, some karate. I was also taught legal holds and restraints.”
The carjackers got away after another vehicle appeared with a passenger brandishing a gun, but Ben-Shalom’s friend managed to get enough vehicle information that the perpetrators were tracked down and arrested. Jesus Lazaro (17), Junior Moreno (17), and Giovanni Zurfluh (18) are apparently part of a gang known as the ‘Cut Throat Mob’ and are now facing 31 charges, including theft from Pettis’ vehicles. And while they may have gotten away with messing with a UFC fighter, it seems like they were no match for some badass old ladies.