OZONE PARK — Quick-thinking cops foiled the getaway of four men who allegedly stuck up a cellphone store last week, the NYPD said.
Police responded at about 7:30 p.m. Friday to a report of a robbery inside a T-Mobile store, at 97-05 Rockaway Blvd., according to cops.
Three men had entered the store wearing bandanas over their faces and allegedly forced two customers and an employee into a back room at gunpoint where another worker already was, police said.
The suspects then forced the employees to open a safe, from which they allegedly swiped cash, police said. The men then allegedly stole numerous cellphones and emptied the victims’ pockets of valuables, according to the NYPD.
The crew then allegedly locked the four people in the back room and fled to a waiting silver minivan with out-of-state plates, where a fourth man was behind the wheel, police said.
The van took off, but officers who arrived at the scene quickly put out a description of the getaway vehicle over the radio, according to the NYPD.
Detective Orin Cox and Police Officer Iballys Starling soon spotted what they believed was the getaway vehicle near the corner of 79th Street and Linden Boulevard, police said, and recovered the stolen property along with a .25 caliber, semiautomatic handgun, according to the NYPD.
Tevin Griffith, 21, of Rosedale, along with Reon Adams, 22; Kyle Balkisson, 18; and a 15-year-old from Brooklyn were arrested and charged with robbery with a firearm and criminal possession of a weapon, according to the NYPD.
