'Scooter Bandit' Drags 86-Year-Old Woman Down Sidewalk In Drive-By Robbery
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) - Police say a man riding a scooter robbed a woman on the Upper East Side and may also be linked to another robbery attempt in Harlem.
A surveillance video shows a man slowly ride his scooter up to the corner of 1st Avenue and East 64th Street where an 86-year-old woman was standing, reports CBS2's Natalie Duddridge.
The suspect rides up to her and snatches her purse so forcefully, the woman is knocked to the ground and dragged on the sidewalk.
The incident happened on Saturday, May 4, around 3 p.m.
"First of all, it's cruel. Second of all, it's outrageous," one woman told CBS2's Natalie Duddridge.
"It's scary to think in your neighborhood, when you walk around at 4 o'clock in the afternoon someone's going to attack you," said Upper East Side resident Nancy Bokova.
The suspect got away with the purse.
EMS transported that woman to Cornell Medical Center where she was treated for minor injuries
In the second incident on Monday, May 6, the same suspect drove his scooter up to a 55-year-old man getting out of his car at West 139th Street and 7th Avenue and tried to grab his keys out of his hand.
The target knocked his keys under the vehicle and the suspect rode off. That victim was not hurt.
"He's a criminal. I mean, it's awful," one woman said.
"I'd hold onto it, but at the same time, I've never experienced anything like that. It's scary. It's scary, you never know," another woman said.
Anyone with information is asked to call the NYPD's Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74682), logging onto the Crime stoppers website at www.nypdcrimestoppers.com, or by texting tips to 274637 (CRIMES) then enterings TIP577.
