NYPD seeks Rolex thefts after series of robberies in Manhattan’s West Village
WEST VILLAGE, Manhattan (WABC) — The New York police are searching for a group of thieves who targeted people wearing Rolex watches.
Surveillance footage shows four friends walking down Sixth Avenue around 9:30 pm Wednesday night, followed by a moped with two men going in the opposite direction before the robbery occurred.
“I saw the gun in his hand, this little silver gun,” said Eric Goldie, who was the victim of the robbery. “He took it out and just said, ‘Rolex, Rolex, Rolex, give me your Rolex.'”
Goldie tells Eyewitness News she gave it to him.
“What am I going to do? Argue with the guy who has a gun next to me,” he said.
The gunman got back on the motorcycle and then fled the scene.
The brazen heist actually happened right in front of an FDNY station near West Houston Street, which has a lot of lighting and foot traffic at night.
In fact, a waiter warned them not to leave their phones on the table because it would be easy for someone to walk in and grab them.
That’s when Goldie says he pulled down his sleeve and left his watch covered, until the thief demanded it.
“He knew what kind of watch he was wearing,” she said. “And for me, this was the first time I saw the guy. So in my head, now I’m like, someone must have tipped him off.”
Another man reported to police that he was waiting for an Uber on West 11 Street when he was invited into a yellow Lamborghini with two women he had never met, and that he was drugged and had his Rolex stolen around 4 a.m.
Goldie says what happened to her makes her think the city has work to do to become much safer a few years ago, before the pandemic.
“It’s a different city we live in,” he said. “But I know New Yorkers are strong and we will get through this.”
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