Police are looking for the mugger who robbed a 91-year-old woman as she walked into her brownstone apartment in Brooklyn Wednesday afternoon, choking her and pushing her before making off with cash from her and a neighbor who tried to help. Rob Schmitt reports.
Police are looking for the mugger who robbed a 91-year-old woman as she walked into her brownstone apartment in Brooklyn Wednesday afternoon, choking her and pushing her before making off with cash from her and a neighbor who tried to help.
Elizabeth Gioino told NBC 4 New York sister station Telemundo 47 that she had gone to the library Wednesday afternoon and was returning to her home on Ninth Street near Prospect Park West in Park Slope when the man with a gun sneaked up behind her and began asking for someone named "Jack."
Gioino said that when she told him no one by that name lived there, he began his attack, choking her and pushing her into her building.
"He pushed me, he pushed me, (and said) 'Give me the money'," she said. "'I don't have no money, let me sit down,' I said."
She said the assailant didn't take her for her word and pushed her inside her brownstone. A neighbor heard the ruckus and tried to help, but the mugger pointed a gun at him and told him to "shut up."
"I told him I could give him some money, this lousy guy, and hope he goes away," she said.
She said the suspect took cash from both of them. Police said the man made off with about $370 in all.
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"He took everything," Gioino said. "In my wallet, I got one dollar -- he took that too."
Gioino said outside her apartment Thursday afternoon she was still afraid of the man.
"I told (the police), 'If they catch him, you should kill him,'" she said. "Because if they put him for a jail for a week, a couple of weeks, he gets right out and does it again."
Police say the mugging might be connected with a second one in the neighborhood on Feb. 11. That's when authorities say a mugger hit a 71-year-old woman in the face before stealing $400.
Anyone with information about the suspect should call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-577-TIPS.
