LI mall shooting
Shoppers run for their lives
A thief shot a worker at Roosevelt Field’s Rolex store Tuesday, touching off a panic among Christmas shoppers at the busy Long Island mall.
The shooter was subdued by an offduty NYPD inspector who was buying lastminute gifts and a former NYPD detective who was working at the Garden City shopping center.
The unidentified suspect entered the Rolex shop connected to the Tourneau store on the mall’s first floor at about 1 p.m. and said he wanted to see a $20,000 watch.
“He walks to the back of the store with a clerk, he’s talking about financing a Rolex. But then he pulls a gun and says, ‘Sorry, pal. I’m taking the watch,’ ” a lawenforcement source told The Post.
As the robber fled, he was grabbed by mall security guard Ken Krug, who is a retired NYPD detective sergeant.
During the struggle, the stickup man fired one shot that struck a 67yearold mall shop employee who was standing outside the Rolex store.
Then, offduty NYPD Inspector Kenneth Lehr and other security guards grabbed the gunman and wrestled him to the ground, sources said.
“He’s a fullon hero,” a source said of Lehr, who heads the NYPD fugitive enforcement division.
Lehr, 49, was on the second floor when he heard the gunshot and saw shoppers running toward him.
He ducked into a doorway as the crowd rushed past him, and then ran toward the sound of the shot.
He saw two men struggling — the retired sergeant and the suspect — and rushed toward them as two other security guards joined the fray.
When a set of handcuffs fell to the floor, Lehr grabbed them and cuffed one of the robber’s arms. He and the guards then flipped him over, cuffed his other arm and took him into custody.
“I simply helped them close the deal,” Lehr said. “I did nothing heroic here. They did all the work. That retired detective deserves a lot of credit. I was glad I could help.”
The gunfire caused a panic at the mall as terrorwary customers bolted for the exits while others hid in locked shops or back rooms.
“People were just running. It was chaos. When I saw it, I just thought about people getting shot. I just thought, ‘You need to run to the nearest exit,’ ” Macy’s employee Ava Doshi said.
The victim was hospitalized in serious but stable condition.