'High-Speed' Chase on NYC Streets Was on Horseback

New York's mounted police don't usually give chase, but one officer did just that on the Upper West Side this week. Video released by the NYPD shows an officer on a horse named Kelly pursuing a woman accused of snatching a purse from an older woman's lap near West 72nd Street and Columbus Avenue, repeatedly shouting for her to stop as they wove under scaffolding and between parked cars. The chase ended when a bystander on foot blocked the woman, identified as 44-year-old Felicia Field. Police say she was arrested with the witness' help and charged with larceny and providing false information to an officer, reports the New York Times.

Field's public defender declined to comment. Court records show she was convicted in 2001 of second-degree murder in the killing of a livery cabdriver during a robbery attempt, sentenced to 25 years to life, and later released under circumstances that weren't immediately clear. Mounted officers are generally used for crowd control and observation, an NYPD spokesman said, making such an arrest unusual. The pursuit was captured on the officer's body camera and by an NBC News crew; in the TV footage, Field denies stealing anything as a bystander criticizes the officer for racing the horse in traffic, warning, "You're going to hurt somebody! You're going to hurt this horse!"