Fair Oaks muggings

This morning I read in the neighborhood newspaper, the Noe Valley Voice, that two women have recently been mugged on Fair Oaks Street. Fair Oaks is about six blocks away from where I currently live, but before I moved into this apartment I lived on Fair Oaks for a couple of years.

Apparently, the mugger approached each of the women and hit them hard on the chest. Then he was able to grab their purses. The weird part is, one of the women was talking on her cell phone when she was mugged. Whenever I'm walking at night and feeling a little vulnerable, I always pull out my cell phone and call someone, because I figured that no one would mess with me if I was already on the phone with someone who could hear me scream. This Fair Oaks mugger has demonstrated that the cell phone doesn't provide much of a safety net. It also makes me realize that the person on the other end of the line wouldn't be able to do much. Could my mom call 911 in Portland, OR, and tell them that her daughter was being attacked somewhere in San Francisco? Would the 911 operators even be able to do anything about a call like that?