DAILY NEWS: She was born with the last name of Peace, but anything but that befell the young mother Monday night as she was walking to catch a SEPTA trolley at the 69th Street Terminal. Samara Peace, 18, of Sharon Hill [pictured below, with Upper Darby Police Superintendent Michael Chitwood], was carrying her 7-month-old daughter, Samya, close to her chest when, about 11 p.m., a young man later identified by police as Carlos C. Boothe, 19, of Upper Darby, approached her on Lennox Road near Penncock Avenue and asked for her phone number, she said. At the same time, a larger male, identified by police as Demetrius J. Batts, 19, of Philadelphia, walked around her and into a nearby alley, Peace said. When she refused to give Boothe her phone number, he
demanded that Peace hand over her purse, according to police. “I wasn’t trying to fight him, but it [my purse] wasn’t coming off easy,” she said.
When he couldn’t steal her purse immediately, Boothe allegedly swung at Peace but hit her baby’s head first, slamming the child’s head into hers, she said.Peace said she and Boothe exchanged several punches before he was able to grab her purse and run into what police determined was his own home just a few feet away on Penncock Avenue near Lennox Road. It was there that Batts stood, holding open the door for Boothe as he ran in, Peace said. Peace said she and her baby were not seriously harmed and she was able to go to a friend’s house to call police. Peace said, in the aftermath of the attack, that she had more of a fight than flight response. “I kept calling for them to come back because I wanted to fight,” she said. MORE