‘Stripped’ by muggers
Police arrested four men after they allegedly mugged a teenage boy at knifepoint in the West Village early on Sat., May 25.
The victim, 16, told officers that he was walking past the corner of Bedford and Christopher Sts. around 1:30 a.m. when the posse accosted him, beginning with Gregory Deloach, 22, who reportedly shoved the boy to the ground. According to the teen’s testimony, Troy Newton, 30, then steppedan and punched him in the face before Deloach told him to “strip.”
The boy, fearing for his life, handed over his sneakers and jacket. Then, according to police, Luis Vasquez, 24, also demanded he give up his backpack. Finally, Benjamin Mazyck, 34, forced the teen to cough up his cell phone and the $45 from his pocket. According to the police report, Deloach then took a razor blade out of his sock, brandished it in front of the boy, and told him, “If you snitch, we’ll kill you and you won’t make it home to your mother.”
But, once his alleged attackers had fled, the teen gathered up the courage to walk to the nearby Sixth Precinct to report the crime and describe the suspects. Hours later, cops were able to round up all four thugs and recover the stolen goods during a canvass of the area. Deloach, Newton, Vasquez and Mazyck were all charged with robbery.
Hudson River punch
Police arrested a teenager who allegedly attacked a woman, seemingly targeted at random, while she was walking in Hudson River Park early on Thurs., May 23.
The woman, 24, told police she was passing through the park near the corner of Christopher and West Sts. around 1:30 a.m. — a half hour after the park’s curfew — when a man, later identified as Jonte Smith, 17, walked up to her, punched her in the face multiple times and fled on foot. She immediately called the police to report the incident and describe her attacker, and was shortly afterward taken to Beth Israel Hospital for treatment of minor injuries.
Within hours, Smith was apprehended near the corner of W. Fourth St. and Sixth Ave. during a police canvass. He was charged with assault.
Not very generous
An unsuspecting woman asked a passerby for a cigarette — but the man and his friend responded by stealing her cell phone.
It was around 4 a.m. Fri., May 24, when the woman, 23, reportedly approached Federico Gonzalez, 28, on the sidewalk of Little W. 12th St., between Washington St. and Ninth Ave., to bum a smoke. A witness to the incident told officers that, as the woman was speaking, Gonzalez snatched her iPhone out of her hand and turned to run away. When the victim tried to grab it back, Gonzalez’s buddy Travis Ford, 25, allegedly stepped in her way to block her, before Ford joined his crony and fled.
But after the woman and the witness walked to the Sixth Precinct minutes later to report the crime and describe the suspects, police were able to catch the two suspects during a canvass of the area. Gonzalez and Ford were both charged with grand larceny, and Gonzalez was also slapped with a charge for unlawful possession of marijuana after cops found a bag of purported pot in his pants pocket.
What a (gl)ass
Police arrested Christopher Garner, 21, around 3 a.m. on Sat., May 25, after officers on patrol witnessed him punching in the glass window of an entrance door to the residential building at 77 Christopher St. Amidst a pile of shattered glass, Garner was charged with criminal mischief.
Monkey business
Witnesses said they saw Sadou Diallo, 20, sticking his hands in and around the pants pockets of multiple patrons at Brass Monkey, the bar at 55 Little W. 12th St., early on Sat., May 25. Around 4 a.m., one of them got fed up and called the police, who responded within minutes to cuff the would-be thief before he could succeed in snatching a wallet or cell phone. Diallo was charged with jostling.
— Sam Spokony
