Four robbed at gunpoint in Rockville Centre

Police are looking for two or more men who pulled off two robberies — one at gunpoint — in Rockville Centre within an hour of each other early on Sept. 23.

According to village Police Department detectives, two 21-year-old women, accompanied by two men, ages 22 and 23, were walking from a party on Meehan Lane at 4:36 a.m. when they were accosted by two men in front of 100 N. Centre Ave. One of the men, who the victims said was black, approximately 6 feet 1 and 185 pounds, and wearing a black hooded sweatshirt, blue jeans, a black ski cap and a do-rag, pointed a black automatic handgun at the victims and demanded their personal property.

The second man was described as black, between 5 feet 7 and 5 feet 9 and wearing a blue T-shirt with yellow stripes and blue jeans. Police say they fled the scene on foot, heading north on North Centre Avenue toward Meehan Lane. There were no injuries reported, but the robbers got away with assorted credit cards, ID cards, a cell phone, a handbag and an undetermined amount of cash. Police searched the area but did not find the gun.

Detectives said they are not certain whether the same two men were involved in an earlier robbery, at 3:30 a.m., on North Park Avenue. In that incident, police said, a black man with a shaved head, wearing a white T-shirt, approached a 21-year-old man and asked to borrow his cell phone. When the victim complied, he was punched in the face by a second man, described as black, 5 feet 10 and wearing a blue-and-white-striped shirt. The men fled with the phone. The victim was taken by ambulance to South Nassau Communities Hospital.

“Robberies are a very serious crime,” said Police Commissioner Chuck Gennario, “and we’re investigating this to the fullest extent possible. We’re looking into the possibility that the two crimes are related. We had been doing very well with robberies — they had been down considerably from last year. But in the past few weeks, we’ve seen a spike.”

Detectives ask anyone with information about either crime to call Nassau County Crime Stoppers at (800) 244-TIPS. All callers will remain anonymous.