A Bronx convenience store clerk recalled how a pair of shoplifting goons dragged him out onto the sidewalk and beat him unconscious before running off – leaving him bloodied on the ground.
Sam Balfour, 63, was behind the counter at the Mobil gas station mart where he’s worked for 13 years when the two thugs walked in shortly after 12:30 a.m. Saturday to rob the store, he told The Post.
“I didn’t realize they were together,” Balfour, still shaken from the assault, said Monday. “One of them came to the counter and asked me if I had Newports. I told him we don’t have Newports. Meanwhile, the other guy was stealing from the fridge.”
Surveillance footage shows the second crook cleaning out the store’s supply of Ensure from a freezer in the back, stuffing a backpack with the high-protein drink while Balfour was distracted.
“When I saw that the was stealing I tried to lock the door to protect my stock,” the clerk said. “But I didn’t realize [the two men] were together. One of them kicked the door to open it and they started pulling me out from the store.
“I grabbed the backpack and was trying to pull back,” Balfour said. “And all of a sudden they pulled me all the way out, and one of them hit me in the neck and pulled the bag from me. I fell and hit my head on the concrete. I blacked out. The next thing I knew I was at the hospital.”
The footage from the store captured the attack and shows what appears to be an employee at the shop and a second person checking on the unconscious clerk after the thieves flee.
Balfour was taken to Montefiore Medical Center and was in stable condition.
A hard-working native of Ghana, Balfour said he now suffers from dizzy spells and is plagued by pain in his head, neck and shoulder as a result of the cowardly attack.
Photos released by the NYPD show one suspect wearing a “Super Mario” cap and a black t-shirt with a Game Boy logo, and the other with a black cap and a black, long-sleeved shirt with a photo on the front.
“It’s not fair,” he said. “These are young people. They can go to find a job. To steal from somebody’s business, the business collapses and I don’t have a job to feed my family. I try to protect my job, you know?”
He said Saturday’s horror wasn’t his first encounter with crooks at the store.
“One time, about eight months ago, a guy came and tried to take the whole register,” Balfour said.
“So, I called the police. I wouldn’t allow him. He was pulling on it and I was pulling back, and he ran away before the police got there,” he added. “Eventually they found him and arrested him.”