Woman Says She Chased Alleged Wallet Thief Into Subway, Collared Him
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- An alleged wallet thief on a shopping spree got quite the surprise after police said he messed with the wrong woman.
As CBS 2's Diane Macedo reported Friday, the alleged theft victim tracked the man down with her smartphone. That was when things got really interesting.
"I was like, 'How dare this guy even take my stuff?'" said Kirsy Polanco of the Bronx.
Polanco said that was all that was running through her head back on the afternoon of July 17, as she found herself face to face with the man who had allegedly just stolen her wallet and was about to get away.
"I left my wallet at Wendy's, and I realized after I'd finished eating that I'd left it on the counter," Polanco said. "I went looking for it, It wasn't there; kind of checked my Chase app."
The app showed someone had just used her bank card to make a purchase at a liquor store, and then another at the nearby Journeys shoe store on East 14th Street.
Polanco ran over and approached a man with bags from both locations.
"He kind started, like, walking really fast and saying he was going to call the cops on me, like, because I was harassing him. And then he dropped my debit card on the floor and, like, someone picked it up. And then there, I was like, 'Hey, can I just please have my stuff back?' And he's like, 'If I give it back to you, what will you do?' and I was like, 'Nothing,'" Polanco said.
But Polanco said the alleged thief did not return everything.
"So he gave me my wallet, but it only had my ID in it," she said, "and I was like, 'Wait, where's my cash and the shoes you just bought?'"
But instead of giving her the rest of her stuff, Polanco said the alleged thief instead made a run for the 14th Street-Union Square subway station -- a move that probably didn't work out the way he planned.
"He, like, jumped there turnstile. I jumped the turnstile. He, like, ran down into the train that was just pulling up, so, he had glasses, so I grabbed them off his face, and he kind of like turned around and like elbowed me," Polanco said. "And like, by that time, he had, like, no shirt on, basically, because I, like, pulled it so hard that whole time. He got on the train. I'm kind of holding the door and, like, his collar at the same time and then, like, the cops just swarmed down there."
A witness described the commotion.
"I see the guy running into the train station, then she came running behind him," and she tackled him, the man said. "We thought it was hilarious."
A suspect -- Corey White, 35 – was arrested and charged with robbery, grand larceny and criminal possession of stolen property.
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