A Cuban woman confronted a man who attempted to rob her of her cellphone while wielding a knife, as she was heading to work in the La Rampa area, in the Plaza de la Revolución municipality of Havana. The incident was captured on video and shared on Facebook by Pedro Lizardo Garcés Escalona, delegate of Circumscription 6 of the Rampa Popular Council, through his page "Gente de Barrio."
According to the published report, the assault occurred in the morning when the thief approached the woman with a knife to snatch her cell phone. Neighbors in the area, along with a particular young man, chased and detained the attacker until the arrival of the police, who then proceeded to arrest him.
When the thief was restrained by the crowd, the victim confronted him without fear: she shouted "Shut up!" and slapped him several times amid the applause of those present.
The woman explained to everyone why she was on the phone at that moment: "I’m calling my job to let them know I don’t have transportation, and that son of a b***h took the phone out of my hands while holding a knife."
When the thief tried to defend himself by saying, "I didn't give you," the victim responded bluntly, "You didn't give me, but don't you realize that I am a woman? I am a woman and I live off my work."
The people present also asked the detainee if he would like the same to be done to his mother while they took away the knife he was carrying. In the end, the woman expressed her gratitude for the intervention: "Thanks to a young man. Thanks to the police."
Delegate Garcés Escalona accompanied the video with a direct message: "Every criminal or antisocial act will have its response, and there should be no doubt about that." The publication also stated that those who have been victims of this individual can go to the PNR Unit at Zapata and C.
The incident occurs in the context of a historic escalation of crime in Cuba. The Cuban Observatory of Citizen Audit documented 2,833 verified crimes in 2025, a 115% increase compared to 2024 and a 337% rise compared to 2023, with thefts being the dominant category: 1,536 cases, an increase of 479% since 2023.
Havana is among the four most affected provinces in the country, along with Matanzas, Granma, and Santiago de Cuba. Just on Wednesday, professor Julio César González Pagés warned that "the elderly are now the target of robberies and assaults" in Cuba.
So far in 2026, cases of citizen detention of thieves have multiplied on social media. On May 27, neighbors captured a teenage thief in Santiago de Cuba who shamelessly declared, "I'm a minor, nothing will happen to me." In April, a young man immobilized a pickpocket in Havana until he could hand him over to the police, in another scene that also went viral.
The community's response in the case of La Rampa encapsulates the frustration of a population that confronts insecurity on its own, in light of the State’s inability to curb a wave of criminal activity that continues to grow.
Filed under: