2 More Stores Robbed at Gunpoint

By Rachel Holliday Smith – DNAInfo.com

A crew of men robbing neighborhood businesses at gunpoint hit up two more spots in Crown Heights, bringing the total number of stick-ups in one week to five, police said.

The armed robbers, usually working in a group of three, have a pattern, local police said: they threaten a worker with a gun, post look-outs on exits and move out quickly with cash or stolen property.

That’s what happened around on Wednesday at the Diamond Krust restaurant at 387 Utica Ave. in Crown Heights, police said, when three men came into the shop around 2 a.m. One of the suspects hit a 41-year-old female employee and held a handgun to her neck as another man smashed the eatery’s cash register to the ground and a third guarded the door.

The crew made off on foot with an unknown amount of cash from the register, police said.

The next night, police say the crew struck again at a bodega at 209 Sullivan Pl. around 1:45 a.m. on Thursday. The three suspects came into the deli with a handgun, threatened a male worker there and took $750 in cash and credit cards.

During the robbery, one of the suspects fired his weapon, shattering the deli’s front glass window, but no one was injured during the shooting.

The two stick-ups come on the heels of three similar armed robberies in three days earlier this week at a laundromat, smoke shop and West Indian restaurant.

No suspects have yet been identified and no arrests have been made.

Anyone with information about the stick-ups are encouraged to contact the police department through the city’s Crime Stoppers hotline at (800) 577-TIPS or by calling the 71st Precinct at (718) 735-0511.