Woman with cane robs pet store

A woman with a cane and an affected limp robbed an upscale pet store at 3702 Riverdale Ave. on June 1, surveillance footage from the store shows.

At 5:32 p.m., the robber opened the door to Popcorn Pawz at 204 W. 231st St., hobbled inside and asked a clerk standing at the register if she was a manager. When the clerk, who gave her name as Tricia F., replied in the negative, the woman slid a note scrawled in pencil over the counter.

“Don’t draw attention. Don’t make a scene. Open the register and put all the money in the bag,” Tricia recounted the robber as saying. The clerk said she did as she was told and emptied $540 cash into a black deli grocery bag the woman handed to her.

“Count to a thousand,” the robber ordered Tricia before making for the door — this time, with cane aloft. After the woman was gone, Tricia left the counter, locked the door and called 911 and her manager, Jose Mendez.

“She came in like she was a 60-year-old woman. But if you look at the video, she didn’t have one wrinkle on her face,” said Mr. Mendez, who added he had reviewed the video and discussed the incident with his staff.

“It’s the first time it’s happened. This store has been around now four and a half years,” he said in an interview at the store. “We’ve had occasional shoplifting. No one’s ever made an attempt to rob us.”

Mr. Mendez said he was surprised someone would risk a felony offense and potentially years in prison to steal $540. 

“There are more people who are not afraid of the law,” he added. “Honestly, you don’t really see too much of a police presence in the streets. You don’t see patrol cars going around the block, you don’t see policemen on 231st, where it’s a very high traffic area.”

Reached for comment, a community affairs spokeswoman for the 50th denied a rise in crime near the intersection.

“No increase,” she said. “Not to my knowledge.”

The robbery case remains open to investigation, she added. Detectives might compare surveillance footage of the robber to that of customers who visited the store in recent weeks, the spokeswoman said.