Hunt Granny Basher

Outraged by the vicious robberies and assaults of two elderly Queens women earlier this month and frustrated that the red and pink bicycle-riding punk who preyed upon them has yet to be caught, one Queens politician has added to the growing reward being offered in exchange for information on the case.
City Councilmember James F. Gennaro announced on Tuesday, March 13 that his office would contribute $5,000 to an increasing number of rewards being offered in exchange for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the unknown assailant whose audacious crimes have raised the ire of New Yorkers citywide.
“It’s hard for the community to be at peace because the perpetrator who committed these crimes is still at large,” said Gennaro, while flanked by community civic leaders at a press conference held to announce the reward.
“It is critically important that we get this predator off the streets and get him into the criminal justice system. It is my hope that these rewards can make the difference and make that happen,” Gennaro said.
The unknown assailant was caught on security videotape assaulting one of Gennaro’s constituents, 101-year-old Rose Morat, in the vestibule of her Jamaica Estates apartment building located on Highland Avenue as she was headed out to church.
Morat, who uses a walker and remained upright during most of the attack, was leaving home for nearby Immaculate Conception Parish around 12:30 p.m. on Sunday, March 4 when the man set upon her and began hitting her in the face, eventually breaking her cheekbone.
After the man, described by police as a medium-built, black male in his late thirties wearing a winter coat with a fur-trimmed hood, knocked Morat from her feet, he stole her purse which contained $33 and her apartment keys and fled the scene.
Half an hour later he struck again.
“I regret that I entered the tenth floor elevator,” 85-year-old Solange Elizee said with a lilting Haitian accent that sounded cheerful despite the trauma that has jarred her life.
Elizee was returning home to her fourteenth floor apartment on 170th Street in Jamaica when she was attacked. She had just collected a meal from a neighbor on the tenth floor who cooks for her each Sunday when an unfamiliar man in the elevator gave her pause.
“I hesitated, and he said, ‘You look scared. Don’t be scared, I like to help old ladies. I see you don’t walk so well. Let me help you,’ ” described the former teacher with six grandchildren and 17 great-grandchildren who, like Morat, relies on a walker.
Elizee said that the man got off the elevator before her and that when she arrived on her floor she looked around and saw no one. But as she opened her door the attacker pushed her inside where he began hitting her in the face before throwing her to the floor.
“So much punch, oh my God!” she exclaimed.
Elizee said that she began to pray that God would divert the man’s attention away from her to something he wanted to steal instead, and that her prayer was answered.
He helped himself to $45 and Elizee’s wedding band, which she did not realize had been stolen until she later noticed cuts on her empty ring finger. The man also stole a gold ring inscribed with the letters H and R. The ring was given to Elizee by her son, Henry Robert, before he died in April 2000.
“That was the first time I have been beaten and so hard,” said Elizee, who now feels unsafe in her home. Although she trembles from Parkinson’s disease, “Now I am really shaking. I am shaking all the time,” she said.
Despite having alerted officers in all 76 of the city’s police precincts and the intense glare of media attention shining on the case, the New York Police Department (NYPD) “has so far not had a definitive break in the case,” Gennaro told reporters.
In addition to Gennaro’s reward, the NYPD has offered a $2,000 reward and 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care has offered a $1,000 reward.
Hoping to create even more incentive for someone with information to come forward, the Manhattan-based 100 Mileman Foundation matched Gennaro’s reward with $5,000 of its own.
“I’m completely outraged over the whole thing,” said Jesse Itzler, who created the foundation he named for a 100-mile, 24-hour nonstop fundraising run for charity he did last year.
“This is something that touches everybody,” said Itzler, who learned of the case watching television. “It’s just so heart wrenching.”
The NYPD has asked that anyone with information about these robberies call its Crime Stoppers hotline at 800-577-TIPS.
In response to the attacks on Morat and Elizee, Senators Serphin R. Maltese and Frank Padavan have joined their colleagues in supporting legislation to toughen penalties for physical assaults on senior citizens. The legislation would make it a class D or class E violent felony to assault any senior over the age of 70 or someone 60 or older who suffers from a disease or infirmity associated with advanced age. Class D violent felony convictions are punishable by up to seven years in prison and class E felony convictions are punishable by up to four years in prison. Neither sentence contains eligibility for parole. Under existing law, these types of physical attacks on seniors are class A misdemeanors punishable by up to one year in prison.