Wild video shows a US tourist yanking a suspected pickpocket by the ponytail after the teenager allegedly stole her purse and passport while on vacation in Venice.
Footage of the dramatic incident, which took place last Thursday, shows the furious woman gripping the teen girl by the hair in front of a crowd of onlookers in the world-famous Italian city.
The mom of eight was able to track down her stolen purse by using the “Find My Friends” feature on her AirPods, which were inside it, according to her daughter, Karis McElroy, who shared the original video of the confrontation on TikTok.
Karis’ mom was on vacation in Venice with her stepdad when they were crowded by a group of girls on a narrow bridge, and soon realized that her backpack had been unzipped and her purse containing her credit cards, cash and passport was missing, along with a metal water bottle.
“Her and my stepdad immediately started tracking her purse through her AirPods on Find My Friends, and they were able to track it down back to those three girls,” Karis said in a subsequent video.
“So she goes and chases them down, and she grabs one of the girls by her ponytail and does not let go. Two of the girls stay, one of the girls runs away with my mom’s purse,” she went on.
“She said she didn’t care about any of the other stuff in the bag, but she just at least wanted her passport so she could get home,” she said.
The Airbnb host told Karis’ mom that the trio were a well-known group of pickpockets in Venice and stood with her while they waited for the cops to apprehend the teenagers.
All the while, the girl being held by the ponytail was screaming, with no effect on Karis’ mom.
“I have eight kids, you’re not getting to me,” the mom tells the suspected teen pickpocket.
“The police officers came, and they were about to arrest these girls when the girl that had the bag over her shoulder went and swung it and hit my mom, and it hit my mom in the head,” Karis said.
“And in the bag was that metal water bottle that they took from my mom. So my mom had a massive gash on her head, and it was bleeding everywhere. She got a black eye from it, and the girls were arrested. And then my mom had to go to the hospital and get some stitches.”
The third girl got a train to the airport where she was stopped and Karis’ mom’s passport recovered, along with her credit cards, although she didn’t get the cash and AirPods back, Karis said.
Despite her traumatic experience, Karis said her mom had stressed how kind everyone else in Venice had been, with a jewelry store owner next door to her Airbnb even gifting her a necklace.
The couple, from North Carolina, are currently on a Mediterranean cruise after boarding a ship in Venice, Karis said.
The girl who was yanked by the ponytail and subsequently arrested is only 14 years old, and was released on bail just two days later, Italian outlet Il Messaggero reported.
