Video shows man on scooter dragging elderly woman on Upper East Side
UPPER EAST SIDE, Manhattan (WABC) -- A man on a scooter was caught on video dragging an elderly woman down a sidewalk in Manhattan.
Police believe this is the first of two incidents the driver has been involved in.
It happened on Saturday, May 4, around 3 p.m. on East 64th Street and First Avenue on the Upper East Side.
The police surveillance video showed a man on the moped slowly roll up the corner of the sidewalk, grab the woman's purse, and then try to speed off - but she held on.
She was dragged down the sidewalk in the process and was treated for pain to her arm at the hospital.
The driver got away with the woman's purse. Eyewitness News spoke exclusively with the victim, who we are calling Mary but not showing her face.
We caught up with her Monday as she headed out to celebrate her 87th birthday, and she recounted the attack.
"It happened after I crossed 64," she said. ("What do you remember happened?", we asked.) "Being pulled," she said. "I'm a very positive person and a very strong person so I'm going to make it but I'm very angry since it happened."
Mary said she didn't see the man approaching before he took her purse and everything in it.
"All my documents, my credit cards, my ID card, my medical card, my keys," she said.
Mary did go to the hospital to get checked out and is grateful to the NYPD officer who made sure she got home safely.
"Someone took me home in the police car, a young lady came upstairs with her gun," she said. "She went in my apartment, checked all the closets before I could get in."
In another incident, on Monday, May 6, on West 139th and Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard in Harlem, a 55-year-old man had his keys slapped out of his hand, also by a man on a scooter.
The driver of the scooter is described as wearing a yellow helmet, dark pants, and a black and white jacket.
Anyone with information in regard to the identity of this male is asked to call the NYPD's Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782).
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