San Francisco residents fed up with rampant crime in California stepped up when a man allegedly tried to steal an expensive laptop from a woman at a small cafe.
The incident unfolded on Saturday afternoon at Sana’a Cafe near the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art on New Montgomery Street.
Witnesses said the man walked into the cafe, immediately grabbed a woman’s Apple MacBook laptop and tried to run away. Video showed one man tackle him and others jump in to help him.
‘Most people want to do the right thing.’
The man who first tackled the would-be thief was interviewed by a local citizen journalist who goes by “Frisco Live 415” on social media.
“Luckily, within seconds, everyone ran outside so I just told people to pick, someone on one leg, someone on another leg, and hold his arms as well just so he could stop trying to fight, and hit me, and that we could control him until the cops got here,” said Henry Flynn, who has training as a security guard.
“You know, they seemed to get here pretty quickly,” he said of the police.
The alleged thief was later identified as 19-year-old Zachary Morris-Dadzie of Suisun City. He was charged with grand theft and second-degree burglary.
Some are calling Flynn a hero, but he said to KRON-TV that he rejected the praise.
“Most people want to do the right thing. It just takes one person to really get ahead of it and everyone else will follow,” he said.
Flynn, who is 48 years old and a fourth-generation San Franciscan, is also running for mayor of the city as a grassroots candidate.
“I see myself representing the silenced majority of the city – the working class, the bread and butter of the city. I think what we need right now is the same thing that happened at that cafe where everyone came together,” he explained.
“We need that citywide,” Flynn concluded. “We need everyone coming together who’s invested in the heart and soul of the city.”
He said that he cracked the screen on his cellphone during the altercation, and the woman whose laptop was almost stolen offered to pay to fix it, but he refused.
Here’s video of the event:
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San francisco crime, Witnesses tackle thief, Laptop thief tackled, Residents thwart robbery, Crime