DCPI
A mugger brutally beat a Hell’s Kitchen food vendor with a metal pipe – breaking his teeth – before ripping off $3,500 from him in a brutal attack this week, authorities said.
The 36-year-old food cart operator was working around 10:30 p.m. Tuesday at the corner of West 49th Street and Eighth Avenue when the menace approached him and bashed him in the face and body with “multiple objects,” including the pipe, according to cops and sources.
The attacker then snatched $3,500 from the badly battered worker and bolted into the 50th Street subway station nearby, police said.
The victim was rushed to Bellevue Hospital, where he was listed in stable condition, but was left with some broken teeth, authorities said.
The employee — who had only worked at the cart for three or four months — “got hit very badly in the face” and likely had to undergo surgery, according to another man who was working at the cart Wednesday afternoon.
A hot dog cart worker located about a block away from the scene of the Tuesday night attack said he typically closes up his cart around 8 or 9 p.m. each night because of safety concerns.
“I don’t open late at night anymore because it’s not safe,” he said. “You don’t know who is trying to hurt you or rob you.”
Footage released by the NYPD shows the still-at-large assailant staring directly at the surveillance cameras inside the subway station.
He is believed to be in his 30s and is shown wearing white Mets baseball cap, a Tommy Hilfiger white and blue bubble jacket, and light-colored jeans.
Anyone with information on the attack is asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782).
The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the Crime Stoppers website at https://crimestoppers.nypdonline.org/, or on X @NYPDTips.