Cory Booker is the Chuck Norris of U.S. mayors, and his list of real-life acts of heroism keeps growing. The latest feat of the 43-year-old Newark, N.J., mayor: rescuing a freezing pooch from the cold on Thursday after concerned locals tipped him off on Twitter.
Reporter Toni Yates first noticed a dog suffering in the below-freezing temperatures while filming footage for a segment, but when she saw the dog was still outside hours later, she tweeted at Booker to take action — and that’s exactly what he did. The mayor arrived, scooped the dog up and carried it into a police car before delivering a stern warning by phone to the dog’s owners, who claimed they didn’t know “Cha Cha” had escaped outside.
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“This dog is shaking really bad, and you just can’t leave your dogs out here on a day like this and go away and expect them to be O.K.,” Booker told WABC. “Hypothermia on any animal, including a human animal, will set in pretty quickly. So this is very sad, you can just feel the dog shaking pretty badly.”
Thursday’s rescue isn’t the first time Booker has braved extreme conditions — or used social media — to come to the rescue. To help you understand why some call Booker the Supermayor, NewsFeed proudly presents the Cory Booker Greatest Hits Collection:
(MORE: Cory Booker Cements His Reputation as Newark ‘Supermayor,’ Lets Sandy Victims Crash at His House)
- Last April, when a neighbor’s home caught fire, Booker saved a woman from the blaze without hesitation. “I just grabbed her and whipped her out of the bed,” he told the New Jersey Star-Ledger. The mission was successful, and both were treated at a hospital for some smoke exposure. (And as one Twitterer joked, “Smoke was treated for Cory Booker exposure.”)
- When Hurricane Sandy struck this past fall, knocking out power for many New Jersey residents, Booker opened up his home to let folks hang out, watch DVDs and charge their devices. He even had lunch delivered, because even though your phone’s charged, you still gotta eat.
- Booker still makes the world a better place even when he’s refusing to help. When a Newarker complained to Booker that he was running out of Hot Pockets post-Sandy, Booker declined, tweeting back, “I believe in you. I know this is a problem you can handle.” But before long, thanks to his social-media star power, the makers of the delicious frozen treats provided the town with hundreds of coupons.
- In winter of 2010, Booker turned his @CoryBooker Twitter account into a blizzard help line. When one man tweeted that his sister couldn’t make it through the snow to buy diapers, Booker showed up at her house with diapers. When locals were stuck in their cars (or, in one case, on a bus), Booker and his team helped dig them out the old-fashioned way: with shovels.
- In December, to better understand the struggles of citizens relying on food stamps, Booker took part in the SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) challenge and vowed to spend $33 on food for a week. It wasn’t easy — he blew most of his budget on beans early on. So how does a tech-savvy mayor broadcast his food fails to the world? With Instagram, duh.