New York authorities released photos Sunday revealing the faces of two suspects linked to the robbery of half a million dollars at a Queens jewelry store last week in which the criminals pistol-whipped a 79-year-old woman.
The criminals, one pictured wearing a Los Angeles Lakers sweatshirt and the other dressed in head-to-toe black, are believed to be accomplices in the two robbers who broke into the Diamond Collect in downtown Flushing and made off with $500,000 worth of jewelry. reported the police.
Disturbing video shows the moment the suspects made their way into the store, past the elderly woman who was desperately trying to keep them out of the store.
“They pointed a gun at his head and said, ‘Open the safe! Open the safe!’ But my mom didn’t know. She was totally terrified,” shop owner Eva Chen, 43, said of the horror in broad daylight.
The owner said her mother, Yuchi Lin, 79, had just arrived from Taiwan for a visit hours earlier when Chen left for lunch, leaving her in charge of the jewelry store around 2:30 p.m. on the 22nd. February.
A person in an Amazon delivery jacket left a package outside the door while Chen was gone, the New York Post reported.
The suspect then hid in a nearby flight of stairs with an accomplice, waiting for the unsuspecting elderly woman to come out and pick him up, said the daughter, who described her family as “close friends” of New York City Mayor Eric Adams.
“My mom didn’t know” that the alleged delivery man was still around, Chen said.
“He waited 3-4 minutes, he thought the guy had already left. So she opened the door to pick up the package, but the guy ran to her right away and then yelled at another guy hiding downstairs to come up.”
When the thieves entered, they demanded that the woman open the safe, but she could not.
Law enforcement officials say the jewel thieves “beat and kicked a 79-year-old female employee in the head with a pistol.”
A police spokesperson said they could not provide details on how the two new suspects are believed to have been connected to the violent crime.
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