Sept. 13, 2024 By Bill Parry
Two teenagers were abducted in Corona by several men in a gray 4-door Ford Fusion and robbed at gunpoint before they were released at a Citi Field parking lot during the afternoon of Sunday, Sept. 1.
Police from the 115th Precinct in Jackson Heights reported that a 15-year-old boy and a 15-year-old girl were walking along 108th Street near 39th Avenue just after 3 p.m. when the vehicle pulled up alongside them.
A rear passenger threatened the teens with a silver handgun while demanding they get inside the vehicle, police said. Once inside, the victims were robbed of their cell phones, cash, a fanny pack, and a belt as the perpetrators drove east on Roosevelt Avenue toward Citi Field.
The New York Mets were playing in Chicago that day, so the parking lot was mostly empty when the suspects freed the teens at Shea Road and Stadium Place, west of the stadium alongside the Grand Central Parkway. The vehicle drove off in an unknown direction, and the victims were not injured during the armed robbery, police said.
The NYPD released surveillance images of the 4-door Ford Fusion sedan with unknown Pennsylvania license plates.
Anyone with information regarding this investigation 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 crimestoppers.nypdonline.org or on X (the platform formerly known as Twitter) @NYPDTips. All calls and messages are kept confidential.
Through Sept. 8, the 115th Precinct has reported 302 robberies so far in 2024, 75 more than the 227 reported at the same point last year, an increase of 33%, according to the most recent CompStat report.