NYC Honors Sanitation Worker Who Stopped Robbery At Gramercy 7-Eleven
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- A sanitation worker was honored Thursday for stopping a robbery in progress.
As CBS2's Sonia Rincon reported, the cameras at the 7-Eleven in Gramercy Park captured sanitation worker Curtis Jackson stopping a would-be robber from holding up the store while he was on the job last week.
His partner's cellphone captured what happened next, as Jackson held onto the suspect until police arrived with moves he learned in the Marines.
"I want to say on behalf of everyone in this city we are so appreciative, we're so proud of you and we thank you for being the kind of New Yorker that gives us an example of how we all should be," Mayor Bill de Blasio said Thursday. "Let's give this man a round of applause."
De Blasio presented Jackson with a certificate recognizing his bravery and Sanitation Commissioner Katherine Garcia presented Jackson with something else.
"Our graphics folks used their imagination and decided that in the future, the department actually really needs an action Jackson super figure," Garcia said.
That could become his second nickname since his colleagues already call him Fifty, for the real name Curtis Jackson shares with a certain rap star, Rincon reported.
Jackson told CBS2 last week that he just wanted to do the right thing.
"I didn't want nobody to get hurt. That was the main thing that was going through my mind," he said.
And today, Jackson said all this talk of being a hero makes him see heroes in everyone.
"Those mothers and fathers who take care of their children -- their children look up to you because you're taking care of them," he said. "And everybody takes care of everybody, and that's what I want to be a part of -- somebody that's taking care everybody, somebody else. "
The suspect in the robbery was arrested. It turned out the man was holding a marker and not a gun, but no one knew that at the time, Rincon reported.
Commissioner Garcia said Jackson is being reviewed for a medal of honor from the department.