HELL'S KITCHEN — An ex-con with a crack pipe in his pocket threatened to kill a man while trying to rob him at knife point on Eighth Avenue, police said.
The victim, a 33-year-old Hell's Kitchen resident, was walking on the sidewalk in front of 727 Eighth Ave. around 1:30 a.m. Thursday when Timothy Collins, 43, came up to him brandishing a large knife, authorities said.
“I’m going to kill you. I’m going to stab you,” Collins told the man, adding, “give me your money, white boy," according to a criminal complaint filed with the Manhattan District Attorney’s office.
But instead of handing over his wallet, the victim ran away and flagged down passing police officers, the NYPD said.
The officers found a knife with a more than 4-inch silver blade and a black handle stashed in a newspaper box and arrested Collins, who was standing about 20 feet away from the box after the incident, the DA said.
When officers searched Collins’s jacket, they found a glass pipe with crack-cocaine residue in his left front pocket, the DA added.
Collins was arrested and charged with menacing, criminal possession of a weapon, criminal possession of a controlled substance, possession of a knife worn outside of clothing and criminal possession of knives or dangerous instruments, the complaint said.
He has a rap sheet dating back more than two decades, with his most recent stint in prison stemming from drug possession.
He spent two years in prison starting in May 2011, after police found him with 142 pills of morphine sulfate and liquid morphine sulphate, according to the state Department of Corrections.
He was released in June 2013, but returned to jail three times for violating his parole before finally being released in March 2014, the DOC said.
Collins previously spent three years in prison between 1995 to 1998 for selling crack cocaine to an undercover officer, according to DOC records.
He was also jailed between 1992 and 1995, after he and another person burglarized a public school in The Bronx, DOC records showed.
An attorney for Collins did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
He was being held at the Manhattan Detention Complex on $1,250 cash or $2,500 bond and was expected to appear in court Tuesday, the city DOC said.
