Mar 12, 2007 8:55 pm US/Eastern
Police Broaden Search For Elderly Attacker
NEW YORK (CBS/AP) ―
Police launched an all-out hunt on Monday for a villain who punched a 101-year-old woman in the face while she was walking to church and then stole her purse -- carrying $33 and house keys.
Dozens of detectives were assigned to the case, and every uniformed officer in the city has been shown a surveillance camera video of the attack in the lobby of the woman's Queens apartment building, police spokesman Paul Browne said.
Police were going door to door, canvassing residents in every building that may have had a vantage point to the attack. They also were speaking to people in nearby commercial buildings and stores.
The valiant woman, Rose Morat, was making her way with a walker to church on March 4 when the mugger beat her and ripped her pocketbook from her arm. She suffered a fractured cheekbone.
She was taken to a hospital, but doctors could not repair the damage because of her age.
Morat, who spent three days in the hospital, said that she won't allow the attack to frighten her and that if she had younger legs she would have chased the thug.
"I'm a very strong woman," she said. "I've been that way my whole life."
Police believe the mugger attacked an 85-year-old woman, Solange Elizee, in Morat's neighborhood a short time later. She suffered facial cuts and bruises and had $32 and her wedding band stolen.
The search for the attacker was being ratcheted up because of the brutality directed at the elderly, Browne said.
Police have pieced together a description of the thug using the surveillance video and the victims' recollections: a black man in his 30s, about 5-foot-10 and 165 pounds and wearing a winter jacket with a fur-lined hood.
A superintendent in a nearby building told police he encountered a man who said he was looking for a job and the man had a small red mountain bike like one described by Morat.
The attack has drawn the ire of the public. More than 1,000 calls went into a police tip line, not so much with tips about the attacker but "volunteering exactly what they want to do to this guy," police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.
Browne said the crimes have "outraged New York."
(© 2007 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
