Group Robs 2 UES Stores, Several Others In Manhattan: Police

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — Police are looking for a quartet of robbers who targeted a pair of Upper East Side shops where they injured one worker and stole over $1,000 of goods, officials said.

The same gang of four may have also robbed at least seven other shops in Manhattan and Brooklyn, according to police, and have stolen over $5,000 in total in the sometimes violent crimes where workers were left injured.

According to police officials, the first location the group struck was a stone on the Upper East Side on First Avenue near East 68th Street nearly two months ago.

On Oct. 22 at around 10:50 p.m., a group of four men entered the shop and took a tobacco grinder and attempted to access the cash register, police said.

A brave 25-year-old chased the group out of the store and, after a struggle, was able to hold the front door shut to keep them from coming back in, according to officials.

The worker suffered a small cut to his hands and was treated by first responders at the scene, police said.

Weeks later — and after robbing a store in Morningside Heights and another in Harlem — the same group returned to the neighborhood on Nov. 15 and entered an East 70th Street smoke shop near First Avenue, only steps from their first October robbery attempt, police said.

The four men entered the smoke shop at around 7:20 p.m. and pushed a 23-year-old worker as they made their way to the cash register, police said, taking about $1,200 dollars from the store in total.

Police said no injuries were reported.

Anyone with information in regard to these incidents is asked to call the NYPD's Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782).