Brazen thieves rob coffee shop customers at gunpoint across from police defunder Tiffany Cabán’s office
Two brazen thieves on motorcycles robbed a group of people dining outside a fashionable Queens cafe — which is located across the street from the office of Councilmember Tiffany Cabán, a major supporter of defunding the NYPD, cops and witnesses said.
The masked men dressed in all black rode up on the sidewalk and pointed guns at customers who had been relaxing outside the Under Pressure Espresso Bar on 31st Street in Astoria around 3 p.m. Tuesday, police and witnesses said.
“Hands up, don’t move,” they barked at the victims — and said that if they did move, they’d “shoot,” two employees who witnessed the incident told The Post.
“Two people came on motorcycles and they pointed their gun outside and took some chains and bracelets from some people outside,” said one of the workers, who declined to share their name.
Another worker said about a dozen people were outside the coffee shop when the robbery happened and called the incident “f–ked up.”
No one was injured, but the crooks took bracelets and chains from an unknown number of people. They fled north on 31st Street and were still at large Thursday.
The gunplay on Caban’s doorstep comes after she published a letter in February criticizing the NYPD for sending an anti-gun unit to the 114th Precinct, which covers the area.
“Our district is already home to some of the highest stop-and-frisk rates in the city,” she wrote. “Now we will also have to contend with the unit that, despite containing roughly 5% of the force, committed nearly 1/3 of all police murders in the 20 years before it was [previously] disbanded.”
When the first employee was told about Cabán’s calls to defund and disband the NYPD, he broke into laughter and called her a “clown.”
“I should go talk to her,” he said.
“Is she serious? She‘s going to defund the police? Ha! She got no good reason, bro.”
He called on police to “find” the men responsible for the robbery and “prevent this from happening” again.
The coffee shop, where an order of cold brew costs $4.50, is about 140 feet away from Cabán’s office, where staffers refused to speak to The Post about the incident.
“She is not here right now. She’s currently in a meeting,” a worker said when a reporter asked to speak to Cabán about the incident.
“I had heard it happened to a coffee shop but recently became aware it was that coffee shop.”
Cabán’s spokesperson declined to comment.
