Sarasota city manager helps save woman from attempted robber

SARASOTA, Fla. A city leader and two other Good Samaritans are being hailed as heroes for saving an elderly woman under attack, including a city official.

City Manager Tom Barwin was riding his bike to lunch Thursday around 12:30 p.m. when he noticed a man begin to follow a 66-year-old woman outside a nearby church.

“[I] raced over there as quickly as I could and about halfway, I heard screams,” he said.

Surveillance footage showed a shirtless Jason Perez, 28, slap the woman as he tried to rob her.

Barwin, a former police officer, followed his old instincts and sprung into action.

“We were trained to calm things down, de-escalate as best you can and try to control the situation,” he said.

Two construction workers also came to help, but it was no use, as Perez was determined to leave.

“This was a pretty big guy,” Barwin said. “He started a fight with us and we just wrestled on the ground.”

Perez was delusional and high on drugs, according to Sarasota police.

“I figured I got close enough to him whereas if he had a gun or a knife in his pocket, I think I could’ve got on it and disarmed it before he would’ve been able to leverage it at any of us,” Barwin said.

Perez is currently in custody at the Sarasota County Jail facing robbery and battery charges.

He is being held on a $35,000 bond.