62-Year-Old Woman Punched, Mugged in Brooklyn

The police released surveillance video showing a 62-year-old woman being mugged in hopes someone will be able to identify the attacker. This past Monday morning around 6:40 a.m., Patricia McGowan was heading to Good Shepherd School in Marine Park, a Catholic school where she has worked for 43 years as a math and computer teacher, when a young man approached her.

As the Daily News describes, the mugger "punches the startled computer teacher in the face, knocking her through the gate and onto the ground. As she shields herself with her hands, the man snatches two bags and runs off. The video then shows McGowan..sitting stunned on the ground, holding her face." She was able to get up and go across the street to ask a neighbor to use a phone.

While McGowan was calling police, the thief came back and stole her 2000 Toyota Corolla, which the police later found. Colleagues say McGowan, who suffered swelling from the attack, is very shaken from the attack. Third grader Christopher Caputo said, "I think it's really horrible and it's a sin that this happened."

Police are asking for people with information to call Crimestoppers at 800-577 TIPS. Last year, a man beat and mugged 101-year-old and 85-year-old women, leading some angry people telling the cops, "You better catch him before we do" (the suspect was eventually caught).

Update: Police arrested 18-year-old Eric Ferguson in connection with the attack. Apparently he is wanted for other robberies.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Jen Chung in News on June 13, 2008 10:08 AM

Comments [rss]

Snoopy

BTW they caught the guy. Seems like he mugged several others and was released from a prior arrest just a few weeks ago. Judges need to be a bit more aware of repeat offenders.

sonyactivision

#30 is ten up on #20.

Colochita

"And people wonder why young black men are still racially profiled. This pretty much set race relations back in that neighborhood about 60 years."

Yes, we do wonder why. It's not our fault that you look at that mugger and see not one person but an entire racial group. Or that you'll look at the next black guy you see and see a mugger. That's YOUR predjudice and YOUR narrow mind and YOUR mistake.

That guy will get caught and go to jail, like he deserves. If you don't want race relations set back, then use the power of your mind. Choose to realize that he is an individual and not a representative of an entire race. Nobody voted for him to represent blackness. He's a mugger. We don't want him either.

Think2wice

And people wonder why young black men are still racially profiled. This pretty much set race relations back in that neighborhood about 60 years.

The brat is either from the Nostrand Houses or playing hookey from IS 278. These are the only vestiges of ghettodom in thoroughly middle-class neighborhood.

Shinobi Shaw

This idiot is going to get his just desserts soon, why steal and mug a 62 year old woman who is probably hardworking and barely making due?

If you're going to steal at least steal from the Elite Superclass, not the hardworking dwindling middle class people.

Thug trash.

Snakefist Von Thunderplug

Re: #20

Define hypocrisy. I hate moral soap-boxing idiots like you.

Anything can be funny. If some people swing and wiff, big fucking deal. I refuse to give up my right to laugh at an old lady being punched through a gate by a colored gentleman in order to steal her purse that contains 3 Werther's Originals, a "Life's A Beach" key-chain, and $8.37.

That said, I LOVE that video of the 101 year old lady getting clocked.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SH43DjYGgE

You're welcome.

DWM2008

bra,

get out, where was I such as you claim? unless you think that hooker reffers to white older women, I dont think you have a case....symantically that is....HAH

JenChungsBaby

Doing his part to uphold racial stereotypes...DWM2008!

DWM2008

Wow, you would think that all th law and order foks on the web would make such a statement for what bloomberg and his shill raping the city over two new stadiums,

NEWS PEOPLE

that dude stealing your money is Bloomberg, like the woman in the video, call and scream all you want, they still robbing you.

Just so you know in the 1980s and 90s that hooker would have been shot dead putting up that much of a fight for a purse.....dang I miss the 80s.

BY the way......that does happen on Staten Island and New Jersey every day.....

Babysitter, as racist as this place is it is in decline, gothamist has truly jumped the shark and watch within a year the ist a verse will be sold..........because kooks and kites think they run shites!

tsol

Don't snitch, yo!

babyhitler

#22 - that would make too much sense to entertain.

Spear_Chucker

Do I still have to ask, "Where's Al Sharpton?".

ilovejapgirls

people don't know that lockup time = badge of honor

Guest

If karma exists and something ever happens to them, the rest of us are going to laugh our asses off.

Wouldn't that then give those of us laughing bad karma?

Colochita

No, babyhitler.

It's that every time gothamist posts about a crime committed by a black individual, we have to sit through comments about "the black community."

I assure you, the "black community" does not approve of mugging old women or anyone else.

One person did this. Because he's a bad person. Not because he's a black person.

Come on. There's no need to be ridiculous here.

Spirit of 76

Predictably, while everyone else expresses outrage, the resident trolls come out to try to be snarky and funny, which they never are. If karma exists and something ever happens to them, the rest of us are going to laugh our asses off.

Snoopy

The guy needed lunch money, cut him some slack.

babyhitler

Gothamist is so racist! Every time that a hard working old frail woman gets the shit beat out of her and mugged and degraded they show the crime being committed by a young virile black man who has their whole life in front of them and could be prosperous if only they applied themselves but choose the despicable way of life. EVERY SINGLE TIME!!! If that's not selective journalism, I don't know what is.

ed_Extinct

^GTA? hardly, in h is society (which not part of ours) this behavior is rewarded.

meL

I think we need an edit button.

Also, you think he was influenced by GTA IV? I wouldn't be surprised if someone wanted to tout that as an influence on the youths of today to pull off petty crimes.