An armed man in a hazmat suit wanted for killing a popular Manhattan deli worker during a robbery was captured by NYPD officers Thursday, police say.
Kimon Cyrus, an ex-convict who once served time for felony assault, was wanted for killing a popular grocery store clerk and defrauding at least three other stores, “another example of senseless and avoidable violence,” the department chief said. of the NYPD, Jeffrey Maddrey. Thursday.
Cyrus, 39, was grabbed near his Bronx home around 10:40 a.m. and taken to the 42nd Precinct for questioning, police said.
He was charged with murder and criminal possession of a weapon. His arraignment in Manhattan Criminal Court was pending Thursday night.
The first break in the case came Sunday when an informant called the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers hotline and reported seeing the suspect, dressed in military uniform and riding a blue motorcycle, entering a warehouse near Crotona. Park in the Bronx.
Police then tracked him down using surveillance video entering a nearby apartment building, where he was also caught on camera the night of the murder.
On Tuesday night, her white hazmat suit was found behind a building on Park Ave. near E. 158th St. in Concourse Village.
Police tracked down the suspect on video after he killed Daona Gourmet Deli worker Sueng Choi, 67, while pistol-whipping him during a botched robbery on the Upper East Side on Friday.
“This was good old-fashioned police work,” Mayor Adams said at a news conference Thursday.
The killer, who got away with just a tray of lighters after the murder, struck twice days earlier in Brooklyn, according to police.
On March 1, he robbed the Super Deli Market on Manhattan Ave. in Greenpoint. The gunman “quietly” demanded all the money from the register and five cartons of cigarettes.
A similar robbery took place on the night of February 25 at the Sunset Bagel Shop in Ditmas Park. The thief placed a food order, announced a robbery and then fled with cash and several cellphones, police said.
The building behind which the hazmat suit was found is a five-minute walk from Ya Ya Deli at Melrose Ave. and E. 160th St. The robber robbed that store 22 minutes after killing Choi, arriving and departing on the same scooter, according to police
Maddrey said Thursday that the department is working to improve the speed with which it notifies the public about crimes, particularly those with an established pattern.
“It was another senseless shooting committed without thought or fear of the consequences,” the chief said. “Criminals must know that they cannot act with impunity.”
Clients were concerned that Choi worked only night shifts.
“He knows it’s a dangerous place to work,” Choi’s ex-wife, Jenny Chon, 66, told the Daily News earlier this week. “I don’t talk to him much, but every time I talk to him on the phone, maybe once a year, he tells me it’s dangerous.”
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Cyrus pleaded guilty to felony assault in 2003 after a violent attack in Midtown Manhattan a year earlier. He punched a man and sprayed a burning liquid in his eyes before hitting him over the head with a glass bottle, records show. As his victim lay on the sidewalk, Cyrus pulled her wallet from his pocket.
He also has a 2009 arrest for operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated and a 2020 arrest for skipping bail in Mount Vernon.
Choi’s murder prompted a plea from the NYPD and Adams for store owners to ask customers to remove their masks when entering a store, at least long enough to show their faces.
“Once you show the store owner who you are and everything is fine, if you don’t feel comfortable in the store without your mask on, put it back on,” Maddrey said Monday. “But we should help each other to feel safe.”
On Thursday, Adams told reporters that the masks make it difficult for police work and the identification of suspects.
“Face masks protected us from COVID, but they really allow criminals to exploit this,” Hizzoner said while holding up a black surgical mask. “We can have security and public health. They go together.
With Molly Crane Newman
