Granny, 90, fights off thief
Maybe the NYPD should hand this case over to the AARP.
A 90-year-old West Village woman fended off a violent purse snatcher Tuesday, leaving the female thug hobbling away from the crime scene on a cane.
It was the latest in a series of brazen attacks on older New Yorkers — and it could have been worse if victim Gina Zuckerman didn’t put up a brave struggle against the 60-something thief to protect herself and her handbag.
“No woman is going to attack me!” declared Zuckerman, a day after she was thrown to the pavement by the crook.
She suffered a deep cut on her right forearm, where the at- tacker’s nails dug into her skin. But she had no regrets about fighting back and even warned the crook to stay out of her neighborhood.
“She should not come with the intentions to attack old ladies,” Zuckerman said, adding that the attacker had “little chance” of getting her bag.
“I could not possibly let this woman get away with this.”
Zuckerman was targeted in broad daylight, at about noon,, as she rolled a pushcart along Fifth Avenue toward her senior center on Fifth Avenue near Washington Square Park.
“I stopped at 11th Street for the traffic . . . and a woman attacked me from the back. She pushed me to the ground,” the retired advertising-company worker recalled.
Zuckerman clung to her bag, which hung from her push cart, and the crook cursed her saying, “You stupid idiot! You moron!”
Zuckerman held on even as she hit the pavement.
“I only had $10 in it,” she said. “The money wasn’t important. But it was all my documents inside.”
The would-be thief tried to prevent anyone in a gathering crowd from intervening by telling them she was Zuckerman’s home health aide and that the old woman frequently fell.
The ruse worked well enough that she managed to make a clean getaway, even though she was using a cane. She is still at large — without Zuckerman’s purse.
“I wouldn’t give it to her. I fought her off. I was stronger than her,” Zuckerman boasted. “I just screamed and held on to my bag. I could not possibly let this woman get away with this.”
Zuckerman is one of the more than 300 mugging victims citywide over the age of 65 so far this year.
She lives in a prime location for strong-arm robberies of seniors. Manhattan South has seen nearly a 140 percent increase in these crimes so far this year over last year, according to NYPD stats.