A group of Good Samaritans ignored the debate over crime in New York and took matters into their own hands, taking down a Midtown mugger who snatched a woman’s backpack in broad daylight.
Cops said Theodore Shearin mugged a woman in Midtown Wednesday, but before he could say easy money, he was surrounded by a group of fed-up New Yorkers, who tackled him to the sidewalk and made their own citizen’s arrest.
“I heard screaming and saw a woman with a bloodied lip,” Deon Frank, 25, an actor told The Post. “All her stuff was on the ground. He reached down and grabbed some of her cash and start running away, so I chased him and he tried to attack me so I put him in a position so he couldn’t get me and I called for help.”
“People came over,” Frank said. “One guy grabbed his arm to stop him from swinging. Another guy grabbed his leg. People were trying to hit him but I stopped them so he wouldn’t get hurt.”
The takedown was captured on cell phone video, by Jackson Bryant, an online editor, and it shows Frank restraining the suspect in a headlock.
“While leaving work today, I had the great fortune of witnessing firsthand why New Yorkers are so f–king awesome,” Bryant wrote on his web site Coed.com.
“A woman was being mugged in broad daylight on 35th street in Midtown Manhattan, and without a second thought, 10 to 12 citizens tackled this huge thug and took him to the ground.
“Just as many came to the aid of the victim and helped gather her belonging that were spread all across street in rush hour traffic. It wasn’t a black thing or a white thing, it was just good people doing the right thing. Way to go New York!”
The video shows other New Yorkers pitching in.
“Somebody get a cop,” a pedestrian says. “Give her her money, so you can go,” Frank says.
“Give me my money,” the woman pleads.
“Do you want to press charges?” another pedestrian asks.
“Yes,” she says, “he’s an a–hole!”
Shearin, 37, managed to get away, but he was arrested by MTA police two blocks away, according to Gothamist. He was charged with robbery, criminal possession of stolen property and drug possession.
Cops and witnesses said Shearin dragged the victim halfway across the street before the woman, who was visiting New York from Arizona, fell to the ground.
Shearin, who has a long arrest record, had a bag of PCP on him when he was taken into custody, officials said.