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Acrobatic Masked Bandit Robs East Harlem Pharmacy, Employee Says

By Gustavo Solis | August 24, 2015 1:06pm
 Police say an armed man walked into the store at 131st Street and Park Avenue and took $4,500 on Aug. 17.
Police say an armed man walked into the store at 131st Street and Park Avenue and took $4,500 on Aug. 17.
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DNAinfo/Gustavo Solis

EAST HARLEM — An agile gunman jumped through a small window of a pharmacy counter and demanded cash as he shoved a silver revolver at a worker's face, police said.

“It happened very fast,” Jeevanreddy Thateparthy, a Riverton Pharmacy employee, said Monday. ”He was acrobatic, he was professional. He just wanted the money.”

The pharmacy, located at 1945 Park Ave., was robbed Aug. 17 at about 10:30 a.m., according to the NYPD.

Thateparthy was printing fliers when the man, who was about 5-foot-5 and wore a cap over his face, walked right by him and cleared the counter with ease.

He went straight to the back where they keep the money and pulled out the gun.

“I was blank,” said Thateparthy, who had never seen a gun before. “I was shocked, I just stood there like this," he said with his hands up in the air.

Once he had the $4,500, he jumped over the counter again and ran toward a beige SUV that was waiting for him on the southbound lane of Park Ave., according to the NYPD.

The masked bandit also took an employee's phone, which police were able to track down to 155th Street in the Bronx.

No arrests have been made, police said.

A week after the robbery, Thateparthy remains shaken up by the incident.

"I'm scared," he said. "I don't know how to react."