Homeless man grabs granny-bashing goon
A HOMELESS man played the hero Sunday, chasing down a heartless brute — who’s also homeless — he saw knock down two elderly women in Brooklyn, and holding him until the cops came.
The two victims, who are 77 and 79, were walking slowly along Pitkin Ave. near Herzl St. in Brownsville — one pulling a bag and the other using a cane — when the unhinged homeless man ran up to them outside a Shoppers World store at about 10 a.m., cops said.
Surveillance footage shows the man smack one of the women in the head, sending her careening into the side of the building.
He then punched the woman’s friend in the head, knocking her over.
In the video obtained by the Daily News, the heroic passerby suddenly bursts into the frame and sprints after the attacker, tackling and holding him until police get to the scene.
“I was walking down the block minding my business, and the guy over there, he hits the old lady, she hits her head on the glass and knocks out,” said Michael, 35, who didn’t reveal his last name.
“He hits her friend coming out of the store. Basically, I just chased him and held him down till the cops got here.
“He gave resistance, but he’s incarcerated now. You’ve got to do what you’ve got to do,” added Michael, who said he is also homeless.
Michael said that although he wasn’t injured in the tussle, the assailant “hurt my pride and my feelings, because those are old people, and they’re ladies. You don’t do that. And on Mother’s Day, at that.
“Certain things you mind your business about, and certain things you just don’t allow,” he added. “And that was unacceptable. If he’s crazy, he’ll get help. There’s help out here. People act like there’s no help. They don’t want the help. I’ve been homeless a long time, and I don’t beg and ask for nothing. I make a way every day for myself.”
Jacaira Baez, a 20-year-old supervisor at Shoppers World, witnessed the incident as she walked to work.
“I thought they were playfighting,” Baez said. “And I saw a woman on the floor, she was Chinese, and then her friend was trying to help her.
“And I saw that she was bleeding as soon as I came up closer. It was bad.”
She said the man who came to the rescue instantly sprang into action.
“He didn’t let him go until the police came,” she said.
Medics took both victims to Brookdale University Hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, police said.
The homeless man’s arrest was pending as he underwent a psychiatric evaluation at the same hospital.