Man on FIRST DATE is shot in leg at NYC hotspot Philippe Chow after wrestling gun from gang who robbed outdoor diners of jewelry - one week after identical strike on LA's Melrose Avenue
- Two masked, armed men attacked outdoor diners at high-end Philippe Chow on Manhattan's Upper East Side just after 10 pm on Wednesday
- New York City diners recounted the 'frightening' moment as they ran and hid for cover
- The two robbers armed with handguns approached diners at their tables, police said, robbing one man of his Rolex and asking women for their jewelry
- '(The robber) said, 'Hey, it's a stickup.' They wanted our jewelry,' the victim's date told the Daily News
- A 28-year-old male victim dining outside was shot in the leg as he tried to overcome one of the assailants, but managed to get ahold of the man's gun
- He was able to bring the gun inside the restaurant and answer investigator's questions before he was brought to Cornell Hospital
- About a month ago, two men in a black Mercedes-Benz robbed Manhattan diners leaving swanky restaurants of millions of dollars worth of jewelry
- Los Angeles has been hit with a wave of armed robberies targeting shoppers and diners in a popular high-end shopping and dining area
Terrified New York City diners caught up in a brazen robbery have described hearing a gunshot and screams as fears grow that the trend of holding diners up at gunpoint outside restaurants that started in Los Angeles has spread to the Big Apple.
Two masked, armed men attacked outdoor diners at the high-end Upper East Side restaurant Philippe Chow on Wednesday night. They stole one man's Rolex watch and shot a 28-year-old man on a first date in the leg when he tried to grab the robber's weapon.
Halley Wolowiec and Tamara Behan were eating outside at Le Bilboquet, across the street from Philippe Chow, when they heard a gunshot and glass breaking around 10pm.
'There was no mistaking that sound,' Wolowiec told ABC7.
'It was frightening because it was 20 feet away from us and it got very real, very quickly.'
She added that when she looked up she saw everyone running. She said that the restaurant opened its doors and ushered people inside to safety.
Wednesday night's shooting appears very similar to two other recent New York City robberies where diners leaving high-end restaurants were robbed of millions of dollars worth of jewelry. Both times the victims were approached by two men who escaped in a black Mercedes-Benz.
Last week in Los Angeles, a group of diners were robbed at gunpoint while sitting in the outdoor area of La Crème Café on Melrose Avenue, a popular shopping and dining area.
After Wednesday night's incident, witness Tamara Behan pointed to how quickly her dinner on the Upper East Side turned into her life being threatened. 'It's absolutely scary when you think about how quickly it goes from being a nice night to literally you're saying could I get shot?'
She remembered looking at Wolowiec and thinking, 'Good God that could have gone into either one of us.'
The born and bred New Yorker was shaken up. 'You always hear about this stuff but you never think about it happening right behind you,' she said.
A hostess at the upscale Chinese restaurant who witnessed the altercation said: 'It was public in front of everybody.
During Wednesday night's incident, the 28-year-old male victim shot in the leg was sitting outside on a first date at the swanky establishment on East 60th Street when one of the masked men stepped up to his table, according to police.
'(The robber) said, 'Hey, it's a stickup.' They wanted our jewelry,' the victim's date told the Daily News. 'My date started to fight him for the gun. He shot him. It was the left leg. It was our first date. I'm still in shock.'
The man refused the masked robber's demand for his watch and wrestled the man for his gun. He was shot in his left leg in the struggle.
Meanwhile, a second masked man approached another table and robbed 31-year-old diner of his Rolex Stainless Steel Submariner watch.
'There were two shots. Everybody came running in, screaming,' a witness told the New York Post. 'It's hard to believe it was a robbery. They were eating dinner out front. It looked like they were targeted. It's crazy.'
NYPD Lieutenant Lieutenant Thomas Antonetti told DailyMail.com that, after the victim was shot the assailant dropped the handgun, and the victim managed to take it inside the restaurant where it was recovered by police.
Antonetti said the robbers, who are assumed to be in their 20s, fled the scene in a dark-colored SUV driven by a third party heading westbound. Police have surveillance video of the suspects and are searching for them.
The Post reported that the victim staggered, bleeding, out onto the sidewalk.
'One of the responding officers acquired a tourniquet to the shooting victim's leg so that when EMS responded, he was already in that elevated state of care,' Antonetti told MailOnline.
The shooting victim was coherent enough to speak with investigators before he was taken to Cornell Hospital, where he is currently in stable condition.
As of now, Antonetti said, there are no suspects or leads in the case.
'It was like a movie,' a maintenance worker who watched the men get out of the SUV from a nearby building told the Post. 'Two of them got out walking.'
'There was shooting, and everybody screamed,' the maintenance worker told the outlet. 'They ran and got scared and threw the gun on the floor, over there near the bottle on the sidewalk.'
This is not the first shooting incident at the upscale establishment: Tekashi69's bodyguard, Faheem Walter tussled with a bouncer at the establishment in 2018 after he and another member of the rapper's posse were turned away.
In retaliation, Walter hit one security guard over the head with a chair - the guard pulled out a handgun and shot Walter, who ultimately served 62 months in prison for gang violence for the incident, twice in the torso.
Philippe, named after its celebrity executive chef Philippe Chow, is a favorite of Rihanna, Cardi B and Nicki Minaj, according to
The Standard.
Cardi B celebrated the release of her album 'Invasion of Privacy' there, according to published reports, over a slurry of margaritas. The swanky eatery, she's said, is her 'favorite restaurant in the world.'
Among popular menu items are the $85 peking duck special and a $16 red velvet fortune cookie.
The armed robbery and shooting on September 15 came a week after New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio bragged that the city experienced one of its safest Augusts on record.
De Blasio released last month's citywide crime statistics at a press conference on Tuesday, where he said crime in August 2021 dropped 5.4 per cent compared to the same time last year.
Crime in the city is also at one of its lowest levels since 1995, according to CompStat with 6,141 violent incidents compared to 1,979 in the year to date. Those incidents include, murder, rape, assault, burglary, larceny and grand theft auto.
But despite overall crime rates being down, New York City continues to see a surge in violent crimes in some areas, with murders up a whopping 60 per cent in the Bronx alone this year, compared to 2020.
Terrified Manhattan diners describe how armed robbers held up swanky restaurant | Daily Mail Online
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