A petite, 5-foot-tall, novice jewelry clerk, enraged by a customer who snatched the gold bracelet she was showing him, chased the 5-foot-11, 200-pound bruiser in her bare feet, tackling him and holding him until cops arrived.
“I just kicked my shoes off. I guess for a moment, I thought I was superwoman,” said Diana Baird, 30, who only recently came to New York from a small town in Pennsylvania.
“But I did catch him. I come from a small town, and boys like girls who run in their bare feet – that’s a big turn-on.”
Baird, who has been in New York only a few months, turned into Wonder Woman Wednesday morning at her new job at Andrew Jewelers in Medford, L.I., after customer Robert Whittaker, 34, put on a $1,250 gold bracelet, shoved Baird and ran out the door.
She doffed her heeled sandals because they interfered with her running style and lit out across the pavement after Whittaker, screaming: “Help me! He stole jewelry from the store!” to people on the street – but no one came to her aid.
“They just stopped and watched, like they were watching a movie,” Baird said. “In my town, people would have helped.”
Baird chased Whittaker around a corner, through a parking lot and behind the store, where she spotted him halfway over a tall fence, the gold bracelet still on his wrist.
“I really started to sprint,” Baird said. “I yelled, ‘Stop!’ and jumped up and grabbed his neck” and flipped him back over the fence.
Whittaker “hit me in the head with his elbow, but I just threw him on the ground, and I sat on him,” said Baird, who weighs 75 pounds less than her quarry.
“There was a crowd on the sidewalk, and they were all watching the movie,” said Baird, shaking her head. The crowd applauded and cheered – but didn’t help.
“He tried to get up, and I straddled him, and he said, ‘I’m not movin’, ” said Baird, who looked up and saw her boss, Andrew Hili, had arrived and was sitting on Whittaker’s legs. They sat on him until cops arrived.
It was not the first time the fleet-footed Baird has run down a thief. Back in Scottdale, Pa., (population 4,989) while she was working as a night gas-station attendant, Baird vaulted over a counter and ran after a man who drove away without paying.
“I couldn’t catch him because he was in a car, but I got close enough to read his license plate, and the police got him later,” she said with pride.
Whittaker, of 15 Pilgrim Road, Brentwood, L.I., was arraigned yesterday on a charge of robbery, and a judge ordered him held in lieu of $25,000 bail.
Police said he has more than 30 prior arrests for theft and drug use.