What kind of cretin would mug a helpless granny who had returned to her old neighborhood to check out her childhood home? Perhaps the answer will emerge in the eventual prosecution of 25-year-old Richard Davidson. Then again, maybe it won’t since Marjorie Ramondetta, 93 — whom he dragged down a flight of steps while trying to wrest away her handbag —survived the fall. These days it takes a killing for a story of depraved indifference to appear in the headlines on successive days.
The New York Post reports that Ramondetta, accompanied by her 65-year-old daughter, Linda Reynolds, was expecting only pleasant memories when she journeyed uptown to Washington Heights and back through time 73 years. When the pair arrived at the tenement on Amsterdam Avenue ay 164th Street around noon on Tuesday, they were greeted by a young black man, who asked if he could be of assistance.
“He was clean-cut, clean clothes, clean-shaven. He looked decent,” Reynolds later told police. The man escorted the women into the building and up to the second floor. A surveillance video obtained by ABC affiliate WABC shows what happened next. In it, Davidson can be seen reaching for and then grappling with Ramondetta for possession of the bag. He then starts downward, dragging both women with him.
Davidson finally won the battle for the handbag, but police caught up with him several hours later. Once in their custody, they learned that Davidson had 21 prior arrests dating back to 2008. They further determined that Ramondetta was one of three purse-snatching and assault victims Davidson had preyed on that same day.
Davidson has been charged with robbery and grand larceny.
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