Victims of the Citi Bike-riding terror responsible for nine robberies up and down Manhattan’s East Side over the last two weeks said Saturday they were still reeling from their near brush with death — with one petrified victim claiming he quit his job right after the hold-up.
“You have to save your life,” victim Ajay Natavar Bhai Patel, 23, told the Daily News when reached by phone Saturday.
Patel was working at Diamond News on Second Ave. near E. 35th St. in Kips Bay about 7:40 a.m. last Sunday, his usual coffee and bagel in hand, when the stranger walked in firing off questions about different tobacco products, the clerk recalled.
But, within a second, the inquisitive customer turned into a violent threat.
“Hurry up, let’s go! Give me the money — I have a gun!” the man hissed, Patel recalled.
The man didn’t flash a weapon, but the crook’s steely, dangerous stare, coupled with the lack of foot traffic on the lazy Sunday morning, left Patel with no choice but to do what the crook demanded, he said.
“He took my money, everything,” Patel recalled, believing the thief had the gun in his pocket. “I’m scared because nobody [was] outside.”
Patel had worked for Diamond News for the last five years and opened the store every Sunday morning. But that afternoon, when his shift ended, he tendered his resignation.
“Who knows next time he’s coming and he shoots me?” Patel asked, admitting that his interaction with the menacing stranger rattled him to the core. “I don’t want to (work) over there because maybe he’ll come back.”
Before robbing Patel, the thief mugged a 17-year-old boy of $35 down in the East Village near Ave. A and E. Third St., police said. Afterwards, he rode away on a Citi Bike north into Kips Bay, where he held up Diamond News 30 minutes later, cops said.
The would-be gunman has been robbing people and stores across the East Side since May 19, police said. In many of the heists, he’s seen riding off on a Citi Bike. Whether it’s in a store or on the street, he approaches his victim with what appears to be an innocuous question, then gets right down to business.
At the Quick Stop on Second Ave. on May 19, he asked a clerk if he wanted to buy weed before demanding the store’s receipts.
“(He said) ‘I want to rob your store.’ Like that, face to face,” said Ahmed, a worker at the Quick Stop.
NYPD/DCPI
Victims of the Citi Bike-riding terror responsible for nine robberies up and down Manhattan’s East Side over the last two weeks said they were still reeling from their near brush with death Saturday — with one petrified victim claiming he quit his job right after the hold-up.
Three days after robbing Patel, the suspect held up a Dunkin’ Donuts on Third Ave. near E. 106th St., forcing store manager Khalid Taha to relive a horror he experienced just three months earlier.
Taha, 36, was on a No. 4 subway train heading into the Mount Eden station in the Bronx back on Feb. 12 when two rival gangs began blasting at each other, fatally shooting bystander Obed Beltran-Sanchez.
“I was on the train I saw everything — the blood, the bullets,” Taha recalled. “I’m still recovering from it and I’m kind of traumatized because of that.”
Beltran-Sanchez was shot right in front of Taha, who was not able to sleep for two weeks after the bloody clash.
At around 2:45 a.m., the suspect pulled up to the Dunkin’ Donuts on his Citi Bike, parked his wheels next to the building and stepped inside.
“I have some business with your boss,” the thief said before shoving his hand in his hoodie pocket. “Open the register and give me all your money!”
“He wanted to rob me,” Taha recalled. “I pretended to open the register. I was thinking in my head, ‘If I give this guy the money, he still has the option to shoot me. I don’t want my life in his hands.’”
In a daring move, Taha punched a few keys on the register, then bolted into the back of the store and hid. The thief left the store empty handed.
“I have real fear in me that this could be my last day,” he said, recalling the harrowing encounter. He, too, thought about quitting and leaving the city, but working at Dunkin’ Donuts was the only way he could support his wife and 10-month-old baby.
All he can do until the cops catch this rolling menace is be more careful in the early morning hours.
“Every time I open my store, I got to make sure no one’s gonna come in and kill me,” Taha said.
Cops say they’re looking for the thief who is described as Black, balding and about 6 feet tall. During several of his heists, he wears a black hooded sweatshirt, a black hat, usually with the bill backwards on his head, black sneakers, and blue pants.
Anyone with information regarding the thief’s whereabouts is urged to call NYPD Crime Stoppers at (800) 577-TIPS. All calls will be kept confidential.
