Stabbed for pizza
Cash, phone, bike also stolen from immig
A Brooklyn delivery man said he is afraid to go out at night after he was viciously stabbed and robbed while trying to drop off a pizza.
Guatemalan immigrant Esvin Cruz said he came to the U.S. less than a year ago to try to make a living, only to have a gang of punks attack him while he was just doing his job.
“I’m not going to work at night anymore,” Cruz said. “I’ll try to find a new job if they don’t let me work in the day but I can’t be stabbed again. I’m afraid now.”
Surveillance video released Friday of the attack shows Cruz dropping off food at around 4:30 a.m. when he is approached by four people. A suspect in a red mask first pushed the victim away from his bicycle. Another glasseswearing suspect in dark clothing then grabbed the delivery man and threw him on the street, the video shows.
The crooks stabbed Cruz, 20, in both legs, then ran off with his jacket, cell phone, $70 and a bike he said was worth $1,000.
They also stole the pizza. I gave them everything, my cell phone, my keys, everything,” Cruz said. “There was nothing I could do.”
Cruz walked back to the pizza shop, where someone called 911. He was taken to Woodhull Medical Center and treated for his injuries.
“I’m in pain,” Cruz said. “They kicked me and stabbed me. I was bleeding and sweating after it happened. I couldn’t call the cops because I didn’t have a phone and there wasn’t even anyone around, so I had to get up and started walking, and I felt like I was going to faint but I just walked.”
Cruz said he suspected something was wrong when he learned the early-morning delivery was to a Hasidic Jewish building.
“I was waiting to drop off the delivery and they had told me someone would be outside to get it but nothing,” Cruz said. “And then they just grabbed me from behind and there was nothing I could do. They grabbed my bike, my jacket, my money.”
“If you don’t give us everything,” one of the suspects told him in Spanish, “we are going to kill you.”
Cruz said he told his family in Guatemala about the attack, and his relatives were very worried.
“They asked if I wanted to come back,” Cruz said. “They are doubting their decision to let me come here.”
Cruz said he felt betrayed because the people who robbed him were Hispanic.
“I think it’s wrong,” said Cruz, who said he makes about $10 an hour including tips to pay for a single room he rents in an apartment. “I came here to work and nothing else. It’s wrong that they would rob me in a place where there are so many opportunities to work.”