Police are searching for a man caught on surveillance video attacking and robbing a 69-year-old grandmother.
It happened Friday at noon about 50 feet from a Pathmark in Boothwyn, Upper Chichester Township.
Police say the thief approached the woman, knocked her to the ground then dragged her as he tried to take her purse while she held on. The thief was finally able to grab it from her hands and took off.
“You got to be a special kind of scumbag,” said Brandon Irey, an employee at a store at the Larkins Corner Shopping Center. Irey sprang to action after witnessing the crime.
“I immediately dropped everything that I had and I came bolting out of the store.”
Irey and six other Good Samaritans chased after the man who managed to escape. They then returned to help the woman.
“She held on for as long as she could, but when someone twice the size of you pushes you down its hard to hold onto something,” said Officer Michael Molineaux of the Upper Chichester Police Department.
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Terry Heard, a family friend of the victim, says the incident has put residents in the neighborhood on high alert.
“These are tough times,” said Terry. “It’s the holidays. Everybody trying to do a little something for the holidays. We’re all struggling for God’s sakes! You’re going to take form people who don’t have?”
“She said ‘I was just mugged outside the market, I was going for meats, they took the Christmas money,’” said Irey. “And that’s what tore me up inside.”
“What else might he do?” asked Sergeant James Reardon of the Upper Chichester Police. “That’s kind of scary and we’d really like to catch him.”
The victim’s family says that she is shaken up with a few bumps and bruises but is otherwise doing okay. If you have any information on the incident, please call Upper Chichester Police.
