Teen girl busted for brazen NYC mugging thwarted by ‘hero’ doorman
A 16-year-old girl has been arrested over the brazen mugging of a woman that was thwarted by a “hero” doorman on the Upper East Side earlier this month, police said Friday.
The teen, whose name was not released because she is a minor, was busted Thursday morning and charged with robbery for the Feb. 4 broad-daylight attack at the intersection of Madison Avenue and East 75th Street.
The girl and a male accomplice ganged up on a 24-year-old woman, putting her in a headlock, pulling her hair and knocking her to the ground as they grabbed her cellphone and tried to snatch her purse, according to police and a local report.
At one point, the brutes pinned the victim against the glass of a nearby building lobby — catching the eye of a doorman inside, ABC7 reported last week.
“I heard like a thump. She hit the glass with her face,” the doorman, who wanted to remain anonymous, told the outlet. “And when I looked up, our eyes kind of met and all she said [was], ‘Help.’”
He ran outside to see what was happening, but the quick-thinking muggers tried to confuse him.
The one who had the victim pinned to the building claimed that she had stolen his phone, the doorman told the network.
“So, I stepped back because now I thought, ‘I am aiding the thief?’” he recalled. “But that was enough for them. That little distraction.”
The pair took off with the woman’s phone, laughing as they ran away.
But the presence of the doorman was enough to prevent the pair from stealing her purse, too, the outlet reported.
The doorman told the station he was shocked by how shameless the thieves were.
“What struck me is that they were so bold,” he said. “Even when I was outside, they still continued to rob her.”
Residents of the building applauded their doorman, calling him a hero for intervening, the station reported.
The male suspect was still on the loose Friday.
