Good Samaritan Oscar O’Bar takes down sex fiend in attack on Brooklyn neighbor
Barry Paddock and Bill Hutchinson, DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
A down-on-his-luck Brooklyn man was being hailed as a hero Tuesday for cornering a recently paroled sex fiend who mugged his petite neighbor.
Disgusted by a rash of sex attacks on women in Brooklyn, Oscar O'Bar said he immediately charged to the rescue when he heard the woman scream for help about 8:30 p.m. on Monday.
"He's on top of her grabbing the purse. I heard her screaming. I saw he snatched the purse," the 45-year-old unemployed community college student told the Daily News.
Cops said the accused creep, Nathaniel Flowers, 29, was just paroled from prison in July after serving seven years for attempted sodomy and attempted robbery.
The suspect outweighed him by more than 50 pounds and was 16 years younger, but the slightly built O'Bar said he was determined not to let him get away.
"I ain't gonna let that guy go. I'm gonna get him," the unassuming hero said of the thoughts racing through his mind as the attack unfolded on Crosby Ave. in East New York.
He said he chased the purse-snatcher down Crosby Ave. and nearly caught him when the 6-foot, 200-plus pounder tripped and fell at Bulwer Place.
"I was about to hit him with a stick," O'Bar said. "He said, 'Don't do it, I've got a gun.'"
O'Bar and a 37-year-old aircraft mechanic who joined the pursuit briefly hesitated as the ex-con regained his footing and bolted again.
The burly brute ran into a dead end on Vermont Court, jumped a chain-link fence and hid in the yard of a man who charged out and helped O'Bar and the other good Samaritans corral Flowers for cops.
"He got himself trapped," O'Bar said. "Cops came from everywhere. They surrounded the house and brought him out."
The man who helped O'Bar said at one point during the foot chase that the thief dropped the purse and it was picked up by a suspected accomplice who sprang out of nowhere.
The handbag was later found in the area missing $50 cash and an iPod. The accomplice was still on the loose last night.
"I'm just happy she's all right," said the second hero, who asked to remain anonymous. "I'm glad we caught at least one of them."
O'Bar, a student at LaGuardia Community College, said his heroic adventure was motivated by fears of one of his sisters encountering a similar punk on a dark street.
"I want people to know if they do it in my neighborhood, they're going to get caught, definitely," O'Bar said. "I have four sisters of my own and that could have been one of them. I would want someone to do the same thing I did."
Neighbors said the victim, who identified Flowers as the man who mugged her, was returning home from work when she was grabbed by the waist and thrown to the ground.
Law enforcement sources said Flowers, who is on parole until 2013, has a lengthy rap sheet with nine arrests dating to a 1999 gun-brandishing robbery of two people. He was also collared in a 2001 gang rape and robbery.
"I'm so glad they caught him," said Nadia Contreras, 56, a teacher's assistant who lives near the scene of the crime.
"What they did is awesome," she said of O'Bar and the others who helped him catch the culprit. "It makes me feel a little safer."
With Joe Kemp
