A 50-year-old Milwaukee man didn't stand idly by when he saw an elderly woman robbed of her prescriptions outside Wheaton Franciscan-Wauwatosa, 201 N. Mayfair Road; he chased the man through multiple parking lots and down Mayfair road, flagging down cars and trying to stop him.
According to the Wauwatosa police report:
The suspected thief hit the woman in the arm and grabbed her prescription bag, later jumping from a 10-foot ledge and climbing over a barbed-wire fence while being pursued. A vehicle flagged down by the Milwaukee man joined the pursuit of the pill-filcher into the Super 8 parking lot, 115 N. Mayfair Road, where he eluded capture.
Police were able to identify the man from witness accounts and find his apartment. His friend was there and told police that the man had left to go to the hospital because he had a broken ankle.
The 36-year-old Milwaukee man was found and arrested at St. Mary's Hospital, 2301 N. Lake Drive in Milwaukee, at 11:13 a.m. Oct. 25.
The man admitted to taking the oxycodone pills and to having sold pills for $20 a piece to feed his kids. He said that he didn't know where the pills were, because he lost them in the chase.
Two anonymous people turned the victim's pills in shortly after the chase.
The woman wasn't injured.