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Cigar Smoker Who Shot Up Harlem Bodega With BB Gun Arrested

By Trevor Kapp | June 9, 2014 2:00pm
Underage Smoker Denied Cigar Shoots Bodega Staffers with BB Gun
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DNAinfo

HARLEM — Police have arrested a man they say shot up a Harlem bodega with a BB-gun after a store clerk refused to sell him a cigar without seeing his identification.

Joshua Roman, 21, was old enough to legally purchase the $5 Entourage stogie but flew into a rage when he was asked for ID by an employee at the family-run Z & S Candy and Tobacco at 31 Lenox Ave. on May 25, according to police and surveillance footage.

“Are you sure you want to do that? I’m a really violent person. I’m going to ask you one more time,” Roman told clerk Ali Jaran, 23, according to the footage.

Roman flashed his ID quickly as he left the store, vowing to return and wreak vengence on the staff there, according to the video.

Roman came back two days later with 19-year-old Jazmin Williams and two other accomplices and opened fire with a BB gun, striking four employees, police and store clerks said.

Police initially described the gunman as 20 years old, which would have been a year under the city's new legal smoking age — a law that took effect a week before the incident.

Roman, who has nine sealed prior arrests, was arrested June 4 and arraigned on charges of assault, weapons possession and disorderly conduct, police said.

He was being held at the Manhattan Detention Complex Monday on $50,000 bond or $25,000 cash. He is next due in court Tuesday.

Williams was charged with assault and released on her own recognizance. She is also due in court on Tuesday.

The other attackers were still at large on Monday, police said.