‘Gotham City with no Batman’: Gun- toting NYC robbers shoot clerk, pistol whip customer
Two robbers opened fire in a Manhattan bodega over the weekend, shooting a clerk in the groin and pistol-whipping a customer, police said.
The mayhem broke out at Essex Convenience on East 116th Street in Spanish Harlem at around 11:15 p.m. Friday, cops said.
Surveillance footage showed the masked suspects, clad in dark hooded sweatshirts, each wielding a firearm inside the store.
The 34-year-old worker was shot after he refused to cough up his phone, police said.
The assailants also dragged a 22-year-old customer to the back of the store and pistol-whipped him, according to the NYPD.
The victims were both taken to Harlem Hospital in stable condition, police said.
“As soon as he took it out, he pointed it at me. He walked up to me, and I put my hands up,” the customer recalled in an interview with PIX11 on Saturday.
“It was like a silver revolver. It had a chamber on it. And he pistol-whipped me in the head, like in front of the freezer,” said the victim, who remained anonymous.
Essex Convenience opened six months ago and has had so many problems with vandals and thieves that workers installed a buzzer lock on the door, employee Jason Hamza, 34, told The Post Sunday.
But the buzzer was not turned on when the robbers burst in on Friday, he said.
“This happened every day. Our next door neighbors have been robbed multiple times, vandalized multiple times. They grab your stuff and take off. Small kids do it. Kids come in here and rob you and take off,” Hamza said.
“[In Harlem] it’s a lot of bummery going on. It’s the ghetto up here. It’s Gotham City with no Batman out here,” added Hamza, who lives in Brooklyn, where he said he felt safer.
The shot clerk was set to return to work on Sunday afternoon, according to Hamza.
It was unclear what cash or valuables, if any, the robbers made off with, police said.
The pair remained at large Sunday.
