A 25-year-old woman says she's still haunted after being ambushed inside a Brooklyn elevator with her child as they left their apartment building earlier this week, with the suspect threatenening to hurt the toddler if she didn't hand over her purse.
Police are investigating the robbery inside the elevator at a building near Franklin and Dekalb avenues in Bedford-Stuyvesant shortly before 3 p.m. Monday.
The mother described the terrifying encounter in an exclusive interview with NBC 4 New York Friday.
She said she and her child were getting off the elevator when the suspect "pushed me back in the elevator, and my daughter fell," said the mother, who asked to remain anonymous out of concern for her safety.
The woman was holding her daughter's hand, just steps from their apartment, and the suspect, armed with a pocketknife, made violent threats toward the toddler.
"He pulled a knife out of his back pocket and said, 'Give me what I want or I will hurt your daughter,'" she said.
The mother used her body as a shield to protect her daughter but the suspect persisted. He pressed the knife onto the woman's throat, pinning her to the corner of the elevator as she stood in front of her daughter, she said.
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"I didn't say anything. I just gave him my wallet and when the elevator opened, he ran," said the mother.
The violent elevator attack still torments the family, especially the little girl, her mother said.
"When I tell her, 'Come on, let's go to the elevator,' she falls out and stuff now. She doesn't want to get into the elevator," she said.
The mother vividly remembers the scar on her attacker's face.
"It's a real big scar from his ear to his mouth, it's real big and you cannot miss it," she said. "I remember it."
"I'm just scared to go out the house by myself," she said.
Police released a sketch of the suspect (above). Anyone with information about him is asked to call 800-577-TIPS.
