Call him the humble hero.
Friends and co-workers at Jetro, the restaurant supply superstore, are lauding Kenneth Uribe’s fearless attempt to stop a shoplifter by leaping onto the thief’s getaway car on Feb. 10 — but the 36-year-old assistant manager doesn’t want any of the “atta’ boys” coming his way.
“To be honest, I really don’t want to discuss it,” Uribe told this paper on Friday. “I really didn’t want to be on that hood.”
Cops said that the shoplifting suspect Thomas Desimone left the one-stop-shopping locale for restaurateurs on Hamilton Avenue in Gowanus without paying for four packages of bacon, a half-gallon of honey and a box of chicken at 9:30 am.
Uribe then followed him to the parking lot between 16th and 17th streets and ran in front of the would-be thief’s car, preventing him from fleeing — but Desimone gunned the engine, cops said.
Uribe ended up on the hood — and remained there for two blocks until Desimone hit the brakes, shaking off the 36-year-old.
Desimone escaped — but he didn’t get far. Cops arrested him on Feb. 15, charging him with assault and reckless endangerment.
Everyone’s now calling Uribe a hero, but the resident of Queens — Spider-Man’s hometown, by the way — said he did nothing courageous.
“It was either get hit or jump,” Uribe said.
Still, he’s glad someone had finally put the brakes on Desimone’s shoplifting spree: The would-be thief had raided Jetro repeatedly before the Feb. 10 confrontation, police said.
“He’s been stealing from us for a while,” Uribe added. “I wanted to let him know he wasn’t allowed here and formally expel him from the customer list.”
Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes wants to go a step further: If Desimone’s convicted, he’s facing seven years in the slammer, a DA spokesman tells us.
Calls to Desimone’s attorney were not returned.
