Crime

Serial knife robber moves into Queens

Has held up four stores in the city over the span of three weeks

Posted
Surveillance footage of the knife-point robber hitting a Subway sandwich shop in Bayside.
Surveillance footage of the knife-point robber hitting a Subway sandwich shop in Bayside.
Courtesy NYPD

Nassau County’s serial knife-wielding robber has expanded his pattern of terror to Queens, according to New York City Police Department officials.

Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce and an NYPD spokesman, Stephen Davis, said they believe the same man held up a Subway sandwich shop on June 1 in Bayside, Queens. The subject, who has robbed a number of convenience stores and coffee shops in Nassau County, including several in Elmont and Valley Stream, allegedly entered the shop at 9:25 p.m., brandished a kitchen knife and made off with a register drawer containing $400.

“We firmly believe this is the same guy,” Davis told reporters in a briefing on June 2. Davis based his conclusion on video surveillance taken of the robber during various incidents in Nassau and Suffolk counties as well as Queens.

The similarities in the various incidents include the robber’s use of the large knife, the hoodie and mask he wears and his propensity for taking the cash register drawer.

In May, he hit three establishments in Queens, and netted nearly $2,000, police said. On May 11, it was a Carvel ice cream store on Metropolitan Avenue. On May 23, he robbed a Dunkin’ Donuts on 45th Avenue. Two days later, he hit a Dunkin’ Donuts on Cross Bay Boulevard. Meanwhile, on May 17, he robbed a Dunkin’ Donuts on Linden Boulevard in Elmont.

In total, he has robbed 21 stores in three counties, according to police, and has been active as far east as Islandia, where he held up a GameStop at on May 3.

Due to the close proximity that many of these shops have to major highways, police are being stationed at major exit and entry ramps that are close to similar establishments, Boyce said. “We have a very large deployment of plainclothes and uniformed officers at these access points to the expressways,” he explained at the briefing.

The Subway shop the man allegedly robbed on June 1 is one block from an entry ramp to the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.

“He walks several blocks off so we can’t get the car he comes in,” Boyce said, referring to the June 1 robbery. “We believe he is driving a car, gets back on the parkway and is gone. It’s almost like he’s moving toward the city.”

The subject is described as black, approximately 5 feet 9 inches tall with a medium build, and wears a gray, hooded sweatshirt, dark jeans and boots.