The thug grabs the woman’s bag and throws her to the floor. (
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A heartless predator was captured on a surveillance camera violently throwing an 81-year-old Brooklyn woman to the ground and stealing her purse at a lower Manhattan subway station.
The victim, who was taking the subway from the Fulton Street station to her Greenpoint home after her shift cleaning offices, suffered a cut on her head and a broken left shoulder in the 10:40 p.m. attack Jan. 4.
“I knew my bag was gone and I yelled, ‘I was robbed!’ ‘I was robbed!’ ” Madeline Klima told The Post.
Video shows the elderly woman, clad in an ankle-length black coat, bright red hat and support hose, tightly clutching an oversized bag in her left arm.
The powerful mugger, described by cops as a black woman, about 5-feet-11 and 190 to 200 pounds, tails the elderly woman into station and cruelly strikes as the unsuspecting senior citizen is about to pay her fare.
Grabbing the purse with both of her arms, the thug flips the stunned victim backward and throws her to the ground.
She then flees out of the station the way she came.
“Nothing was said. It happened very fast. I was just pulled backwards,” said Klima, who lost three paychecks in the robbery, as well as her checkbook and other personal papers.
“She got my paychecks, $800. I guess I’ll have to survive without it,” said Klima, who lives with her daughter and insists she’s never considered retiring. “I’ve always worked,” she said.
Klima, a lifelong New Yorker, said she considers herself street smart, although she never saw her stealthy attacker.
“You can’t be suspicious of everybody, and you can’t judge people by their clothes,” she said.
Klima hopes her assailant is caught.
“She’s gotta suffer somehow, someway or another. If she does this to someone else, she’s gotta live with it,” Klima said.
Cops said the suspect is 25 to 30 years old and was wearing a baseball cap, black jeans, a black jacket and black boots.
Anyone with information about the assault is asked to call CrimeStoppers at (800) 577-TIPS. All calls are kept strictly confidential.