Results tagged “homeinvasionrobbery”

On Monday night, the owner of Arthur Avenue restaurant Dominick's was followed from the Bronx to his Hastings-on-the-Hudson home, where a group of robbers tied up him, his wife and son during a home invasion robbery. Charlie DiPaolo had exited his car when he was jumped and pistol-whipped by the robbers; his wife was in the garage, and the robbers forced them into the house and to open a safe. Greenburgh Police Chief John Kapica said that DiPaolo's 17-year-old son managed to call the police, "He came downstairs to listen to what was going on, got his cell phone. He went upstairs and secured himself in a closet and called 9-1-1 from the closet." The robbers later found him and tied him up with his parents. Police arrived as the thieves were putting the safe's contents into DiPaolo's car (intending to use it as a getaway vehicle); they managed to arrest Francisco Cordero, but the three other suspects fled. Kapica praised the son, "This kid really had it together. He had a lot of guts. If it wasn't for him, we don't know what would have happened."

Seven police officers had to be treated for injuries after a home invasion robbery led to cops on a chase throughout the Lower East Side that would land three of them in the East River (yet again) while trying to apprehend a fleeing suspect. Three gunmen held up a group of residents inside an elevator of the Smith Houses, a housing project in between the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges, not far from the East River. After forcing the group (one of whom was a pregnant woman) into one of their apartments, the thugs duct taped them together and robbed them of guns, cash and cell phones. When one of the victims broke free and got out of the building, the chase quickly became an affair of cops versus robbers. One of the suspects tried to get away by jumping in the East River, as one witness describes it, "All I saw was a dude in the water. He was all nervous, scared. He was just trying to get away from the police." At one point, two housing officers tried to become part of the nautical apprehension late in the game as another witness tells the News, "He jumped in and the guy was already surrendering." Four other offices were injured when two squad cars crashed during the mayhem.