Former Sen. Carol Moseley Braun mugged!!!!

Very unfortunate and it's particularly rare on this blog that if I was to do a crime story that a former politician would also find themselves into this story. I'm not a big fan of the former Senator, but this is very unfortunate that this happened to her. Whoever it is, I hope they feel guilty about what they've done and who they've done it to.

This story from today's Sun-Times talks about the incident but also about the University of Chicago students who came to her rescue. They did the right thing and thankfully since he had a gun they didn't risk their own personal safety but they got him away from her...

Former U.S. Sen. Carol Moseley Braun had just arrived home from seeing the musical "Wicked," downtown at the Ford Center/Oriental Theatre, when something wicked came her way.

As she put her keys into the door of her Hyde Park home early Saturday, shortly after midnight, a man jumped from behind the bushes wielding a knife -- and attacked the onetime presidential candidate.

"It was awful," a clearly shaken Moseley Braun said Saturday.

But it could have been a lot worse, police said, if a University of Chicago student walking in the neighborhood hadn't come to her rescue -- chasing off and then chasing after the would-be robber who assaulted Moseley Braun in an effort to steal her purse.

"I didn't really have time to think about anything. We saw a woman down on the ground with a man on top of her. It looked like he was assaulting her," said third-year biology major Zachary Trayes-Gibson, 21, of Boston.

"I just started running fast toward them. He got up and ran, and I chased him."

Moseley Braun and police credit the student and his girlfriend Rachel McFadden, 19, of Maryland, with the fortunate outcome.

After police responded to McFadden's 911 call, Moseley Braun, 59, who suffered bruises and a broken wrist, was taken by ambulance to Northwestern Memorial Hospital.

Saturday, she was recuperating in a cast spanning hand to elbow.

"The good news is that I'm alive, and I wasn't cut up any worse than I was," said Moseley Braun, former Cook County recorder of deeds, state representative and the first black woman to serve in the U.S. Senate.

The thief never did get her purse.

"These two young people basically were very brave in attempting to come to her rescue, realizing she was in despair," Chicago Police spokeswoman Monique Bond said Saturday as police canvassed the South Side neighborhood.

Take this advice be careful out there.