STREET ROBBERS WORK FAST

Taranaki Daily News, 23 February 1935, Page 15 (Supplement)

STREET ROBBERS WORK FAST

Seize Money Bag Under Eyes Of Guard And Policeman SHOTS EXCHANGED AS MEN ESCAPE IN CAR TVORKING with such boldness and ’ speed that witnesses were too astonished to interfere, three holdup men robbed a store cashier of a leather bag containing $2400 at Thirty-fourth Street and Sixth Avenue, New York, and escaped. The hold-up occurred within view of an armed guard and a traffic policeman. John Zaza, cashier for Petrie’s Department Store, 45 West Thirtyfourth Street, on the north side between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, locked the store at 9 p.m. and started west, toward the branch of the National City Bank at Thirtyfourth Street and Seventh Avenue. He intended to place the money, the day’s receipts, in the bank’s night depository. Close beside Zaza was Patrick J. Mulligan, a store guard, armed with a pistol. They walked the 100 ft east to the north-east corner. There a man who had been hidden by the building angle suddenly pushed a pistol against Zaza’s side and said, “Hand over the money.” The order was so imperative that Zaza did so. The robber and a companion raced to a motor-car, parked with its engine running in Sixth Avenue, facing north. As they jumped in, a third man at the wheel started the car away. Mulligan had his weapon out by then and fired two shots, one of the bandits firing three back. Dr Samuel Schapiro was driving west in Thirty-fourth Street in his motor-car with his wife and two small daughters and another little girl. One of the robber’s bullets struck the frame of his windshield. Despite this the doctor turned right and gave chase as far as Thirtyseventh Street, where he lost the trail. Patrolman Martin Dolan, on traffic duty at Thirty-fourth Street and Sixth Avenue, ran after the bandit’s car afoot, while another policeman leaped on a taxi-cab’s running board and followed. Within two minutes six radio cars and a car filled with detectives had reached the scene answering the. alarm, but the bandits had vanished.