South Salt Lake Woman Saves Brothers, Fends Off Attacker With Flag

SOUTH SALT LAKE, Utah — She feared she was desecrating the flag that flew from her home, but 73-year-old Lejune Timmerman said she had no other choice as she used ‘Old Glory’ to fend off an unknown attacker.

“(He) beat up my two big brothers,” Timmerman said Wednesday. “He hit me and I didn’t have much leverage to go at him, and then he choked me and that’s when I got angry and I started whooping him with this.”

The attack happened Monday along 3300 South near 1000 West.

“All hell broke loose,” said brother Paul Hultgren.

Timmerman said the stranger had been acting in a bizarre manner — kissing the sidewalk in front of her home — before jumping the fence and going on the offensive.

“The only way I could stop him was take my old flag pole and stick him and hit him with it,” Timmerman said. “By damn, he let my brothers go!”

After the man hit Timmerman and attempted to strangle her, he barged inside the house.

Timmerman said the stranger went inside her bedroom and lay down on the bed before officers with the South Salt Lake Police Department finally arrived and arrested him.

“Just whoop and they were here,” Timmerman said. “If I wouldn’t have had my old flag pole, we would have been dead.”

Police arrested 42-year-old Justin Smith and booked him into the Salt Lake County Jail.

He was formally charged Wednesday with first-degree felony aggravated burglary, second-degree felony aggravated assault resulting in serious bodily injury as well as misdemeanor criminal mischief and two counts of misdemeanor assault.

Hultgren said he always had an appreciation for the flag and this ordeal only deepened it.

“I respect the flag 100%,” he said. “Touch it and I break your hands.”

After the old flag was damaged during the melee, police gave the family a new one.

Hultgren also was extremely grateful to his sister for saving the day.

“She’d do it all over again if it happened again,” Hultgren said. “She put ‘Old Glory’ to work!”