What to Know
- An alert community member in the Brooklyn Heights/Cobble Hill area spotted a wanted robbery suspect and alerted the local community officer
- That neighborhood community officer, who was off duty at the time, informed his colleagues at the 84th Precinct, who caught the suspect
- The man was caught in the middle of a robbery at Vivi Bubble Tea on Court Street, as he threatened a worker with a glue gun
A serial robber in Brooklyn was finally caught Monday after an alert community member called cops, who responded and found the masked suspect toting a glue gun wrapped in tape, police say.
Someone noticed the suspect in the area of Atlantic Avenue and Court Street in Brooklyn Heights, and called their local NYPD neighborhood community policing officer, who was off duty at the time, according to police.
That officer alerted anti-crime police cops at the 84th Precinct, who responded and spotted the suspect at Pacific and Court streets, police said. They followed him to a bubble tea shop on Court Street, where they saw him pull a mask over his face and walk into the store.
He allegedly walked up to a 28-year-old woman working inside the store and pass her an empty backpack, according to police. As the worker started putting money inside the bag, two of the cops entered the store and confronted the suspect, noticing he was holding a black object in his right hand that looked like a handgun.
The officers ordered the man to drop the object several times but he refused and ran to the back of the store, police said. The cops followed him to a bathroom in the back and took him into custody.
The object the suspect was holding turned out to be a glue gun wrapped in black tape, according to police. A black mask and backpack were also found in the bathroom.
Local
Gregory Price, 59, of Brooklyn, is facing numerous charges, including robbery, criminal possession of a weapon, menacing, tampering with physical evidence and resisting arrest. It wasn't immediately clear if he had an attorney who could comment on the charges.
