A 16-year-old boy was arrested for brutally punching a 68-year-old woman, knocking her down the steps of a church in New York City, then stealing her purse before fleeing in her car, according to reports and the NYPD.
The woman, identified as Irene Tahliambouris, who is still recovering from her injuries, was walking up the steps of St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church in Queens on Sunday when video shows the suspect sprinting up the stairs ahead of her.
He then slugged Tahliambouris, sending her tumbling backward down the flight of outdoor, concrete stairs onto the sidewalk.
The teen then rifled through the grandmother's pockets, snatched $300, a cell phone, credit cards and car keys from the woman's purse, according to CBS News.
He then fled in her 2006 Nissan Altima.
🚨WANTED for ROBBERY: On 4/7/24 at 8:20 AM, at 84-35 152 Street in Queens, the suspect punched a 68-year-old female victim, causing her to fall down a flight of stairs, then removed her purse & fled in the victim's vehicle.
— NYPD NEWS (@NYPDnews) April 8, 2024
Have info? DM @NYPDTips,
or call them at 800-577-TIPS pic.twitter.com/KYVB64lUXq
The teen was arrested Thursday evening and charged with robbery, assault, grand larceny and criminal possession of stolen property, the report said.
His name was not released because he is a juvenile.
Tahliambouris remains in the hospital with a fractured skull and a black eye, her family told the New York Daily News.
"She's still recovering. Yesterday she started recognizing us," Daniel Coffaro Hill told the publication on Thursday. "She was brushing her hair today, really slow, but she's in her right mind. She knows who we are now."
A GoFundMe page has been set up for Tahliambouris and has raised nearly $8,000 for her by Friday morning.
Her son Freddy on the page described his mother as "always happy and in good spirits" who would "always do anything she could to help anyone at all times."
"We can only imagine the pain that she experiencing being knocked of the stairs of the church hitting the back of her head on the concrete while this viscous person with no consideration to life attacks her and taking all her belongings and car," he wrote on the page.
