Tries to grab tot, takes a hostage

A crazed man tried to snatch a 3-year-old girl from her scooter on a Queens street, then burst into a nearby home and held a knife to a woman’s throat, police sources and witnesses said Tuesday.

Lester Augusto, 29, was busted not long after the Monday evening rampage and faces charges of attempted kidnapping, burglary and menacing.

The wild episode unfolded at about 5:45 p.m., when the little girl zipped along 104th Ave. near 173rd St. in Jamaica on a pink electric scooter. She and her mom were returning from a day at a nearby park when Augusto pounced, witnesses said.

“The guy tried to reach for the little girl,” said Jonathan DePena, a 32year-old hotel cook and father of three. “He was crazy. He was trying to pull the little girl from her mother.”

The girl was belted into her scooter, though, so Augusto couldn’t wrest her from it, police sources said.

“He was reaching into his back pocket for a gun, a knife, something. Thank God I was there,” DePena said. “He saw me, and I saw him, and he backed up.”

DePena said he asked what he was doing, and Augusto screamed death threats in Spanish, then tried to run into houses on the block.

Augusto found an unlocked back door and burst into the home of a third-grade teacher, police sources said.

The 61-year-old woman told the Daily News she was preparing to attend her nephew’s graduation and went downstairs when she heard the commotion. “He grabbed me by the neck and he had a knife in his hands,” she said. “He was speaking in Spanish, which I don’t understand. He kept repeating, ‘No policia, no policia.’”

She said Augusto pressed the blade to her throat and dragged her to the kitchen, then the living room. He blocked the back door with furniture and started to do the same at the front door.

“I couldn’t scream. He would have slashed my throat,” she said. “Luckily God gave me the power to stay calm and play along. I followed his lead, otherwise he would have killed me. Everything he did was rough.”

Police were already on their way, though, and as he tried to block the front door the teacher said she knew it was time to act, so she opened the door,

“I got it opened slightly, and the cops saw. My jacket got caught in the door. The door couldn’t lock,” she said. The officers pushed the door open and grabbed Augusto in a flash, she said.

“His eyes were weird and his speech was loud and fast. I couldn’t smell alcohol or anything. I was too busy trying to save my life,” she said. “I’m swollen and bruised but thank God he didn’t slit my throat and kill me.”

Police sources said he appeared to be drunk.

Augusto is being held at the 103rd Precinct stationhouse in Queens.

‘I couldn’t scream. He would have slashed my throat.’ HOSTAGE