By Ben Fractenberg and Nicole Bode
DNAinfo Staff
MANHATTAN — A 90-year-old Harlem man was mugged outside his apartment by a pair of vicious thugs after walking home from the grocery store Monday afternoon, police said.
Jessie Little was getting out of an elevator of his apartment building at 15 West 139th Street around 2 p.m. when two men approached him from behind and attacked him, police said.
"One of them put an arm around my neck and pulled me to the ground," Little said Tuesday. "The other guy took the money from my pocket."
Little, who said he was a merchant marine in his youth, had just gone to the grocery story and cashed a check. He said his attackers got away with about $380 in cash.
Neighbors were upset when they found out about the attack.
"Mr. Jessie is a kind man," neighbor Georgeanne Minor, 61, said. "You don't beat on a 90-year-old man."
Little was taken to Harlem Hospital with minor injuries and was released Monday night.
"We need more security in the building," Minor added.
Little said he agreed and wished someone had been stationed at his building when the incident happened.
Now he has to depend on the security camera footage, which he said he hopes will help catch the men who robbed him.
"I want them prosecuted," said Mr. Little. "I want to put them in jail and give them life."
The suspects are described as black men in their 20s, both about 5-foot 9-inches tall. One of them was last seen wearing a dark coat and tan pants, and the other was wearing a beige hooded sweatshirt and dark colored pants, police said.
Anyone with information is asked to call the NYPD's Crime Stoppers at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or text 274637 (CRIMES) then enter TIP577.
