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A maintenance man chased down a thug who had just swiped a woman’s cellphone near the corner of St. Johns Place and Sixth Avenue on Sept. 25, holding the thief until cops arrived.
The victim was at the corner at around 11:45 am when a 27-year-old man swiped the iPhone from her hand and headed towards Fourth Avenue.
But Shawn Gray, who tidies up at 59 St. Johns Place, spotted the crime and chased the crook more than three blocks to Fourth Avenue and Baltic Street.
“I knew I had to get this guy,” Gray told The Brooklyn Paper.
He quickly deflected the notion that he was a hero.
“I don’t know about that,” he said. “I just don’t like to see that kind of thing happen in my community.”
Gray said he acted when he saw “the commotion on the corner.”
“I saw a scuffle and then I saw him running away and the lady screaming, ‘He robbed me.” Gray said. “I chased him down to Fourth Avenue and kept following him. I said, ‘I gotta catch this guy.”
After finally catching up to the suspect, Gray held him until Officer Harish Mansharamani arrived and figured out who was the bad guy.
The cop, Gray and the suspect all returned to the scene of the crime, but the victim was no longer there. Seconds later, though, her call for help came over the police radio, and the victim soon ID’d her assailant, who still had the stolen phone on him.
©2009 Community Newspaper Group
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