Video: Holocaust Survivor On Mission To Catch Queens Purse-Snatcher
She's one grandmother you don't want to mess with.
A 77-year-old Queens woman and Holocaust survivor is
taking matter into her own hands after a thief snatched her purse from a
shopping cart while at Brach's Glatt Kosher Meat Market in Kew Garden Hills.
Bertha Presz, known as "Bobbi" to her family,
said she was looking at eggs when a man walked by her cart and took her handbag
containing cash, credit cards, a cell phone and a driver's license. The thief
stuffed it under his shirt and strolled out of the store, not realizing he had
been caught on surveillance tape.
When Presz realized her purse was missing, "I yelled
out, 'Somebody stole my bag!' And everybody started running around," she
said.
The stunned woman first made a beeline for the store
office, then filed a police report. But detectives at the 107th Precinct in
Flushing quickly moved on to other cases, even after Presz's daughter managed
to trace the cell phone.
"Unfortunately, if there's a shooting, it's very
serious. But this also is serious," said Presz, who grew up in Belgium and
escaped the Nazis as a child.
When the grocery store sent Presz black-and-white copies
of photos copied from the surveillance tape, the feisty grandmother of five
pounded the pavement and went door to door, asking if anyone recognized the
thief.
"It's very typical of my mother to do something like
that," said daughter Hindy Laster, laughing. "It was very hot that
day, and I begged my mother not to do it."
Presz's efforts drew the attention of a community
activist, who began pressing for a renewed investigation. Police then began
distributing fliers of the suspect -- a tribute to Presz's persistence.
"Maybe I'm a little stubborn," she conceded.
For her part, Presz vows never to leave her handbag on the seat of her shopping
cart again.
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