The teen bandit whose arm was severed when he tried to steal a pair of pricey Air Jordan sneakers in a gunpoint robbery is no longer a one-armed bandit, sources said Saturday.
“He’s out of surgery and they’ve attached the arm,” a source said of Zachary Sam, 17, who was taken to Brookdale University Hospital in police custody after the alleged robbery try Friday.
Sam tried to steal the sneakers from Philippe Pierre, 39, who offered them for sale in a listing on the Wallapop app.
Sam climbed into Pierre’s SUV. But instead of offering to close the sale, the teen pulled a gun on Pierre, said police sources.
Sam grabbed the shoes and tried to run off, said the sources. But Pierre chased after him in his SUV, and crashed the teen into a fence.
The alleged thief’s arm was ripped off when he was pinned against the fence.
“I saw a kid under a car,” said Alex Saint Fleur, a bus driver who lives across the street.
“The guy ran him over. He got out, the driver said, ‘He’s trying to rob me. He’s trying to rob me.’”
“I saw the gun on the floor,” Fleur added. “The arm was on the floor near the gun.”
Sam got out from under the car, he said, and ran inside a city bus.
Sam then got out of the bus and started running down Avenue M, he said, before finally collapsing in the street.
On Friday afternoon, the bus was pulled over on 80th Street, blood spattered on its front entrance.
“I was walking up the sidewalk and I heard a boom behind me,” said a postal worker who declined to give her name. “I just kept it moving. I saw somebody run on the bus with a missing arm.”
Pierre was arrested and charged with attempted murder, sources said.
Cops charged Sam with robbery and criminal possession of a weapon.