Aspiring thieves, may we offer you a piece of advice? If you are going to grab 'n' dash on a subway platform please run into an elevator. Because those things get stuck all the time. And? They only have one set of doors! Which means you've essentially run right into a closet. Which is exactly what three young crooks discovered on Tuesday when they thought it would be fun to swipe an iPhone off of Andrew McConnell—who unfortunately for the tykes is both a transit worker and a former cop.
The three youths (aged 14, 16 and 17) snatched McConnell's iPhone from him on Tuesday in the 191st Street 1 station and made a dash for it. But McConnell didn't miss a beat and went after them. At which point the kids made their big mistake. Rather than take the station's grimy quarter-mile-long tunnel to the surface they instead chose to run into one of the station's elevators (the station is, for your information, the deepest one in the subway system). Before the elevator doors closed McConnell pulled out his badge (and flashed his firearm) and directed everyone but the perps to exit the elevator. While an elevator operator called the police, McConnell kept watch over the troublesome trio (one of who tried to get out of it by claiming he was too young to be arrested). When cops arrived the youths were charged with grand larceny.
McConnell, for his part, seemed to have enjoyed the experience—it was his first arrest since becoming a transit inspector six years ago. "I went back to my old police mode," he told the News. "It never left me."
