Fencing Instructor Uses Sword To Foil Robbery

A fencing instructor stopped a robbery last week while shopping at a mall in Bellevue, Tennessee. The cool part? He did it with the very sword and protective gear he teaches classes with.

Franco Scaramuzza was pulling into the shopping centers parking lot when he noticed two men using pepper spray against a couple. One of then men stole the women’s purse and tried to get away.

Flying into action Scaramuzza jumped out of his car, grabbed his épée (fencing sword), and took off towards the two robbers.

Scaramuzza told local affiliate WMCTV:

“The first thing that went through my head is somebody should do something, and that’s when I got really upset and disappointed with myself, because I realized I had the opportunity to do something. And I didn’t want to be a hypocrite who just tweeted about it.”

Scaramuzza had just finished a training session last Tuesday and was already on guard with the full outfit and épée in hand.

“I charged towards them, holding my épée up high, and, you know, yelling at them,” he said. “I kept yelling throughout the entire thing. They completely panicked and dropped everything they stole and really took off.”

Police arrested Michael Butt and Zachary Johnson moments later and charged them with robbery.

Scaramuzza says he teaches his students to overcome their fears and he felt as if doing the same only made sense.

Both of the fencing foiled robbers are now in jail and being held on $50,000 bond.

Johnson’s girlfriend is the only one coming to his defense, swearing that police picked up the wrong guy.

We don’t expect our superheroes to wear fencing outfits and fight with a fencing sword but we’ll take heroes wherever we can get them these days.