NEW YORK – A 79-year-old man has ended up in intensive care in the hospital with a brain hemorrhage after being violently beaten by two robber suspects during a $100,000 heist at the victim’s jewelry store in Brooklyn.
Shawn Cohen pointed out that his father, Manny, was trying to close the jewelry store Lefferts Prospect Gardens at around 5pm on Friday when two suspects broke in and beat the man nearly to death.
“We pray and put our faith in God and in the nurses and doctors here,” Cohen said Sunday from the hospital where his father is.
His father’s screams can be heard on the store’s surveillance camera, which also caught the alleged suspects ransacking the store for more than 20 minutes.
“You have to get all the rings,” one of the suspects is heard saying to the other. The duo allegedly walked out with trays of jewelry, one of them saying his pockets were full.
The New York Police Department has released an image of the two men in hopes that someone can help identify them.
Cohen knew something was wrong when his father didn’t call after work on Friday like he usually does. He checked the camera in the shop from his home and found the unthinkable.
“I look over and see that they are actually fighting with my father, beating him,” she said. “They nearly beat him to death just to rob the store.”
Cohen said officers found his father when thieves tried to hide him underground.
“It’s heartbreaking that this could happen to anyone’s parent,” Cohen said. “We have to wake up as a city, we have to wake up. It’s not normal.”
