Port Authority top cop Joseph Dunne hadn’t made an arrest in 14 years — but the old reflexes kicked in at West and Vesey streets Tuesday when a woman in distress pointed out a man who, she said, had groped her.
“Instinct just took over and I pulled him off the line and I put him against the wall and I searched him,” Dunne, 65, told The Post on Wednesday.
Dunne, since November the agency’s chief security officer, was wearing his PAPD wind breaker during a visit to the World Trade Center when a visibly rattled Brooklyn woman, 24, approached him to report that a man had repeatedly grabbed her buttocks.
The woman pointed out Ivan Escobar, 32, of Jersey City, who was standing on the street nearby.
Dunne conceded he had to call another officer in to make the collar — but only because he doesn’t actually carry handcuffs on him.
“I didn’t do anything! I didn’t do anything!” Dunne recalled Escobar insisting as he was placed in custody for misdemeanor touching and sex abuse.
He was awaiting an arraignment hearing last night.
When he’s not battling street crime, Dunne manages the PA police and is responsible for security at the agency’s five airports, four bridges, two tunnels, bus terminal and rail system.
The 32-year NYPD vet’s last arrest before this one was in 2000, when he was chief of department during the Giuliani administration.
It was at the Brooklyn funeral for Patrick Dorismond in Brooklyn, who’d been shot by an undercover cop during a drug investigation.
Dunne stepped in and made an arrest after thousands of protesters became unruly and someone in the crowd threw a bottle at cops.