A Comox Valley woman has sustained injuries after being punched in the face by a female purse-snatcher.
Shannon Taylor says she was leaving a grocery store at the Comox Centre Mall on Tuesday morning when she exchanged smiles with a woman who then followed her to her vehicle and grabbed her purse from her shopping buggy.
Taylor says the suspect, who is in her mid- to late-30s then punched her in the face.
Taylor posted about her experience on Facebook and has since had several people commenting on the incident.
"If she had hit someone like my mom who's 71 or anybody that's a senior... It's nothing but seniors that shop there and the thought of her punching someone in the face like that, it just scares the hell out of me."
The two women struggled before the suspect ran off with the purse towards the Black Fin Pub.
A witness called 911 and another followed the woman, who was eventually detained and held for the RCMP.
Taylor isn't sure why the woman targeted her when there were other more vulnerable women around.
"You go through all of these things in your head like, 'Why me? Why did you do this?'"
She says she normally would have had her purse secured in her shopping cart with the child restraint and that's something the retail clerk has stressed to others.
Comox Valley RCMP confirmed a woman was arrested in connection with the incident and remains in jail.
