A hazmat suit-clad gunman who shot and killed a deli worker on the Upper East Side may be responsible for three other robberies in the last 10 days, law enforcement sources said.
About 30 minutes after the late Friday slaying at Daona Gourmet Deli on East 81st Street, authorities believe the same suspect held a worker at a Bronx bodega at gunpoint and swiped $1,000 worth of cash and goods.
But the covered-up killer’s reign of terror apparently dates back to Feb. 25, the source said, when the hazmat-wearing man robbed a Brooklyn business at gunpoint.
He struck again on March 1, at another business in Greenpoint, a source said.
“We must put an end to these brutal assaults on our bodega owners. These criminals must be taken off our streets and punished. We cannot allow criminals to go free and commit murder and robberies at will. This is happening across our city without limits and it must stop,” said Radahmes Rodriguez, head of the United Bodegas of America, which has offered a $5,000 reward for information leading to the killer’s arrest and conviction.
A dozen bodega owners attended a late afternoon press conference outside the deli
“You can imagine, we’re here on 81st street and Third Avenue, less than a mile away from Gracie Mansion, and this type of violence is going on with our small business people. You can imagine what the small bodega owners in the Bronx, in Queens and Brooklyn and in Northern Manhattan are going through,” said Fernando Matteo, a spokesman for UBA.
Mateo said store owners should be allowed to require customers to take off their masks, something he said he planned to discuss at a Monday meeting with the NYPD.
The killer in the white Tyvek suit walked into the deli on the corner of East 81st Street and Third Avenue around 11:30 p.m., and pointed a gun at a customer’s head, ordering him to get on the floor and empty his pockets, according to the source.
The brazen suspect turned his attention to the worker behind the counter, hitting him in the head with the butt of the gun and walking toward the back of the store, giving the customer a chance to flee, the source added.
The man heard a gunshot as he fled, the source said.
The gunman blasted the clerk, 67, in the head, killing him before walking out and fleeing on a moped, according to the source.
A man who walked into the store after the bloodshed and saw the clerk lying on the ground, bleeding, called 911.
The victim was pronounced dead at the scene.
The suspect then made his way to the Yaya Deli at 851 Melrose Ave. with a gun, pointed it at the worker behind the counter and robbed the place, the NYPD said.
He threatened to return and kill the workers if anyone called the police, the frightened employees told The Post.
“It appears it’s the same person. The investigation is continuing,” a department spokesperson said.
The worker held at gunpoint claims there was a second suspect in a hazmat suit, acting as a lookout, owner Muaeen Qasem, 30, told The Post.
“He said, ‘Give me money, give me everything.’ And somebody was outside waiting for him… One came in the store and one was waiting for him outside,” Qasem recalled of his worker’s terrifying experience.
The hazmat bandit took “all the money in the cash [register]” as well as “expensive stuff,” Qasem said, pointing behind him to medications such as Advil and NyQuill.
“He said, ‘Give me this, give me this, give me this.’ … He took a lot of things,” Qasem recalled.
The gunman warned, “Don’t call the police… you call the police I’ll come and kill you,” according to Qasem.
“Of course, you’ve got to call the police,” Qasem said.
No one was hurt Qasem said his workers remain on edge.
“I hope the police catch him because I don’t want him to go make the same problem at another place,” the owner said, adding, “And I don’t want him to come back here — he said ‘I come back and I kill you when you call the police.’ Maybe [he’ll] come back again.”
The gunman remained at-large Saturday, police said. The NYPD could not immediately confirm if there was a second suspect in a hazmat suit.
While cops searched for the killer, the Daona Gourmet Deli in Manhattan was closed Saturday.
David, a doorman for the building next door to the deli, was “shocked” when he arrived for work and learned of the cold-blooded killing.
“How could this happen? I heard it was execution style. It’s very sad. It hurts. I feel for his family,” said the doorman, who called the victim a “very charming, very sweet guy” who sometimes made his coffee.
“He was the person that you’d notice because he joked a little bit…He was always in a very good disposition, kind of a joker, very sweet guy, old man,” the devastated doorman said.
“We lost a hard-working man, we are losing the battle against crime, we must help and support Mayor Adams and fight back,” Mateo said. “Unless we get help from Albany these crimes will continue, families will be broken and more businesses will leave New York.”
Anyone with information in regard to this incident is asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 800-577-TIPS (8477).
