New York City mom gives potential car thief 'a whoopin''

Credit: Bill Pugliano

Credit: Bill Pugliano

Don’t mess around with an angry mom, especially if you are trying to steal her vehicle.

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A New York City mother taking her son to school, seeing a man attempting to steal her SUV, dragged him out of the vehicle and pinned him to the ground until police arrived, WABC reported.

"He's lucky I didn't kill him," Tihisha Jones, 49, told WNBC. "That's the thing. He's lucky I didn't kill him."

Police arrested Bernardo Santiago, 19, and charged him with attempted grand larceny auto, attempted petit larceny and criminal possession of a weapon, the television station reported.

Tuesday at 7:30 a.m., Jones had auto-started her 2005 Honda Pilot, which was parked outside her Bronx apartment, WABC reported. As she emerged from the apartment with her son, Jones noticed a man in the driver's seat, trying to get the vehicle moving.

Jones confronted Santiago on the passenger’s side of the vehicle, then came around to the other side and pulled him out of the driver’s seat, throwing him to the ground, the television station reported.

"I came to the side to get him out this way, but I couldn't get him out this way -- he pulled the door to close it on me," Jones told WNBC. "I jumped across the car, open this door and I pull him out and then after that, I couldn't tell you what happened. I just had to do what I had to do."

Jones said her car had been broken into two times already, and said she was fed up.

"They just broke this window last week," Jones told WNBC. "Just the last week they broke my window. So I guess he got a whoopin' for the old and the new."

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