A mother and daughter from Baltimore are the latest victims of a pattern of armed robberies at hotels near JFK since December, the NYPD said.
The pair were robbed and the mother shot while trying to fight off a gun-toting thief who ambushed them in the Hampton Inn parking lot Thursday night, police said.
“It’s a pattern that is developing,” Commissioner William Bratton said Friday. “We want to get these two individuals who are very dangerous.”
After driving into the parking lot on 135th Avenue in South Ozone Park about 8:30 p.m., the mother got out of the car and went into the hotel while her 20-year-old daughter stayed in the vehicle, the NYPD said.
The robbers then pulled up in a white Volkswagen Jetta. One robber in a black ski mask walked to the car, got into it and demanded money at gunpoint from the daughter who had none. The robber then pistol-whipped the daughter hitting her in the head after taking four rings from her, police said. When the mother returned to the car, the robber got out and demanded money from her at gunpoint.
“She actually fights him off,” said Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce of the 53-year-old mother who struggled with the robber before she was shot in the shoulder. The robber took the mother’s handbag and fled in the Jetta.
Boyce said the robbers drove onto the Van Wyck Expressway and police lost them near Rockaway Boulevard. The mother and daughter were taken to Jamaica Hospital. The daughter was in stable condition and the mother in critical condition.
The first robbery at a hotel near the airport involved a carjacking of a black Mercedes, which was used in other robberies, Boyce said.
