BY HELAINA N. HOVITZ | At 3 p.m. last Sunday, Aug. 14, a six-foot-tall man in a baseball cap snatched local resident Charles Chawalko’s wallet right out from under his nose. The man then bolted out of the South Street Seaport Johnny Rockets and began running past the Fulton Stall Market. Chawalko, 23, followed close behind, beginning an hour-long chase of the man up Peck Slip and around the neighborhood, finally finding the man doubled-over and catching his breath on Front Street. After Chawalko confronted him, the man denied the allegation, and took off faster than before back down Peck Slip.
“If he was innocent, he wouldn’t have run,” said Chawalko. “I knew I had to go after him.”
Someone sitting in a parked car nearby told Chawalko to hop in the back, and they began following the man past the Peck Slip Post Office towards Pearl Street. They only made it two blocks before the perpetrator took off down Beekman Street through Southbridge Towers. The man disappeared, and Chawalko called 911 to report the incident. Soon he saw the man hiding behind a pillar in front of Squires Diner. He told the dispatcher he had spotted the man, and began screaming for help.
Chawalko tackled the man in front of T.J. Byrnes restaurant and held him down as a nearby businessman frisked him. The wallet they found was not Chawalko’s. Still on the phone with 911, he watched as the man once again took off, speeding past Key Foods and Pasta and Pizza and out of sight. The dispatcher told Chawalko the authorities were on their way.
Chawalko stopped on the corner of Fulton and Gold to wait for the police. He then saw the perpetrator exit the side entrance of Pasta and Pizza.
That’s when the cops pulled up on Ann Street, told Chawalko to get in the back, and sped towards the Brooklyn Bridge, cutting off the perpetrator at the Crosswalk of Gold Street underneath the Brooklyn Bridge.
The man was telling the truth; he did not have Chawalko’s wallet; but the only money he did have on him, two $20 bills, a $10 bill, and a $5 bill, was exactly the amount that was in Chawalko’s wallet. That was enough to get him arrested for grand larceny, a robbery in excess of $50. Chawalko never found the wallet and had to cancel all of his credit cards. But he got the money back, along with a new nickname.
“My friends have started calling me Liam Neeson,” said Chawalko. “Today, the prey became the predator.”
