New York City police have charged a subway rider who reportedly fired warning shots to save a woman from a robbery.

As you might expect, observers fed up with crooks getting away with crime — and depressed over regular folks getting into trouble when they step in to prevent crime — are livid over the arrest.

A panhandler was holding open an emergency gate at the 49th Street subway station at Seventh Avenue just after 9 p.m. Tuesday and told a 40-year-old woman he would steal her purse if she didn't hand over her money, WABC-TV reported.

With that, another man ordered the panhandler to "leave her alone" and then fired a couple of warning shots, thwarting the potential robbery, the station said.

No injuries were reported, WABC said, and the man with the gun fled.

Police on Wednesday arrested a suspect — 43-year-old John Rote — and charged him with criminal possession of a weapon, reckless endangerment, criminal possession of a firearm, and menacing, the station reported.

"I want to be clear: we don't tolerate this kind of conduct in NYC Transit, period," NYC Transit President Richard Davey said in a statement, according to WABC. "Once again, cameras recorded a perpetrator, and we are grateful the NYPD made an arrest within hours. Thank goodness nobody was hurt here, but what occurred was outrageous, reckless, and unacceptable."

Police arrested the panhandler — 40-year-old Matthew Roesch — and charged him with attempted robbery, the station said, adding that Roesch has one prior arrest for theft of service at the Times Square-W. 42nd St. subway station Sept. 18.

Anyone with information in regard to this incident is asked to call the NYPD's Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782), WABC said.

Here's a sampling of social media commenters who are angry that a guy apparently trying to help prevent crime is now being called a criminal:

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