By: Maria Allard | Advertiser Times | Published December 29, 2015

File photo

While we do not recommend approaching criminals in the manner that she did, we are grateful for her assistance and bravery in this incident. Jim Burke, Harper Woods Public Safety director

Harper Woods Department of Public Safety officers were dispatched at 11 a.m. Dec. 28 to the Kroger grocery store at Eight Mile and Harper for an attempted purse snatching.

Officers en route to the scene were informed that a white man in his late 20s with a scruffy beard and driving an older model, dark green Pontiac Bonneville had pulled up behind a woman as she was getting into her car, according to a police report that Harper Woods Public Safety Director Jim Burke released via www.nixle.com.

In the report, Burke said the man ran from his vehicle, opened the woman’s car door and grabbed her purse from her shoulder. The man then ran back to his vehicle with the victim’s purse, police said.

According to Burke, a woman who was parked next to the victim saw what had occurred and immediately left her vehicle and ran to the suspect’s car.

Burke said she briefly fought with the suspect and grabbed the victim’s purse from him. Several other people in the area began running to help, and the suspect left the parking lot at a high rate of speed.

Witnesses were able to observe a partial license plate number on the suspect’s vehicle, which the report listed as “2016/MI/CC.”

In the report, Burke called the woman who retrieved the victim’s purse a “Good Samaritan” and said she had left before officers arrived.

“She did not identify herself before leaving,” Burke said. “While we do not recommend approaching criminals in the manner that she did, we are grateful for her assistance and bravery in this incident.”

Police believe that this is the second purse-snatching incident involving the suspect.

“There were no reported injuries during the commission of this crime. We believe the same suspect is responsible for another purse snatching at Kroger several weeks ago,” Burke said in the report.

Anyone with information on the suspect or who has further information is asked to contact the Harper Woods Department of Public Safety at (313) 343-2530.