NYPD gifts woman new wheelchair after her electric wheelchair was stolen in Crown Heights
CROWN HEIGHTS, Brooklyn (WABC) -- The NYPD surprised a woman with a brand new electric wheelchair after hers was stolen while she was inside of a store on her way home from church in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.
It happened on Sunday, September 1 at 1:30 p.m. on Troy Avenue in Crown Heights.
Rosalyn Johnson said she had just gone to church as she usually does on Sunday.
She parked the wheelchair on Troy Avenue in Crown Heights to briefly step into a store.
Minutes later, it was gone.
That's when surveillance video shows a woman sitting in the electric wheelchair and driving it down the sidewalk westbound on Sterling Place.
"For it to be a woman you're supposed to help other women. So some women they go astray. So it's up to the women that's not in this worldly life to bring them back," Johnson said.
Johnson has used an electric wheelchair since suffering a stroke in her sleep in 2011.
She said she's had a tough time, but didn't imagine things would get worse.
Johnson is using her neighbor's electric wheelchair after someone stole hers.
"I felt like I wanted to choke her. But then I had to realize I just left church and that's not what we do. But if I caught her I would have dragged her back to church to teach her a lesson. Thou shall not steal," Johnson said.
A good deed was done on Wendesday.
The NYPD visited Johnson to hand-deliver her brand new nearly identical electric wheelchair, which was purchased with $1,500 of donated police foundation funds.
"I'm extremely happy for her that she can get back and get around town because she's very mobile for her age and we want to keep her mobile here," Kaz Daughtry NYPD Deputy Commissioner said
The 70-year-old grandmother was brought to tears of joy.
Johnson said as a woman of faith, she holds no grudge toward the woman accused of stealing from her.
"You gotta have the power of forgiveness it makes you stronger," Johnson said.
Police in Brooklyn are searching for the person who stole the electric wheelchair.
Anyone with information in regard to this incident 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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