SEPTA Transit Police Officer Tackles Would-Be-Robber On Market-Frankford Line
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – A SEPTA transit police officer foiled a robbery this week on the Market-Frankford Line, and it was all caught on camera. It happened on Wednesday evening, but is now getting a lot of attention.
A thief thought he had the perfect target, but he didn't realize a SEPTA cop was just feet away.
The doors opened and out ran 33-year-old Zoilo Greo, followed by the 17-year-old high school student who just had his phone snatched from his hand.
"It makes me smile when I think about it," Chief Thomas Nestel said.
Not the robbery itself, Nestel is talking about the fact that Lt. Michael Wright was on the very subway car when it stopped at the Huntingdon Station.
"The bad guy never keys in on Lt. Wright," Nestel said. "Bad guy grabs the kid's phone, snatches it out of his hand and charges out of the train car."
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But he only had possession of the phone for about three seconds.
"Lt. Wright throws a beautiful open-field tackle on him," Nestel said. "I'm probably going to hear from [Eagles head coach] Doug Pederson. We can talk a trade. I'd like Chris Long and a future draft pick."
Commuters are glad the thief is off the system.
"To me, that's a good thing because I feel safer riding the L," one woman said.
Greo is charged with robbery and related offenses.
"This fella has a pretty extensive criminal record, I guess no surprise to anybody," Nestel said.
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Though this ended well -- no one was hurt -- Nestel reminds people to be aware of who's around them.
"Stop, look up, scan around and if somebody is staring at you, it's probably not because you're the best looking person on the train," he said.
And never chase someone who just took what's yours.
"You can tell us, we'll find that person," Nestel said. "We have 26,000 cameras. We're going to do an investigation. We're going to track that person down and catch them."
Nestel says his team is reviewing other unsolved robberies to see if the suspect may be involved in them, as well.
