Hero cop in a donut shop
Published: June 28, 2005
An off-duty cop grabbing a cup of coffee at a Brooklyn Dunkin’ Donuts was stabbed yesterday while wrestling with a knife-wielding robber - a gutsy move credited with saving a shop clerk’s life, police said.
Officer Vincent Schiavarelli’s heroics were caught on a surveillance tape played for the public yesterday as cops hunted for the stabber - a thug with the last name Killings who has a history of doughnut shop robberies, police said.
“He’s with-it, smart, tough,” Mayor Bloomberg said of Schiavarelli, who was on his way to work yesterday morning when he sprung into action.
“This young officer, out of uniform, without a partner, didn’t hesitate to put himself in harm’s way to protect a fellow New Yorker,” Bloomberg said.
The athletic, 5-foot-6 cop, with two years on the force, took a knife in his left side as the suspect bolted from the Prospect Lefferts Gardens doughnut store.
But Schiavarelli, 24, was already up and walking in his Kings County Hospital room hours after the stabbing - and was expected to make a full recovery.
“I’m proud of the kid,” said his uncle Chris Manos, 47. “Here he’s off-duty, and he went to do the right thing, [to] help somebody.”
His mom, Kathy, had no doubts: “I’ve been proud of my son since the day he was born.”
As Schiavarelli was hailed a hero, cops from his 71st Precinct mounted a search for suspect Shron Killings, 21, wanted for allegedly robbing the same Empire Blvd. shop on May 17 and another Brooklyn Dunkin’ Donuts on May 25.
Cops offered this account of yesterday’s dramatic life-and-death struggle, based on witnesses and the surveillance tape:
Killings strolled nervously into the shop at 6:36 a.m.
With his right hand in his pocket and his left clutching a dollar bill, he asked the clerk for a French cruller.
Killings briefly puts the bill on the counter, and slips both hands below the counter - to open the folding blade he kept in his pocket.
Schiavarelli enters the store, clad in a white shirt and shorts. He’s a regular, and starts chatting with a female clerk.
Killings gets his cruller and hands a male clerk money. As soon as the clerk opens the cash register, Killings swings his hip onto the counter - and points a knife at the man’s eye.
Spotting the knife, Schiavarelli tackles Killings and forces the robber to forgo the loot, and lose his Yankee hat, change and cruller.
Killings stabs the cop in the side, then bolts out the door. Schiavarelli clutches his side but doesn’t realize he’s hurt until he gets outside the store.
Killings then jumps into his mother’s red Kia, the same getaway car used in his earlier alleged heists.
Sources said the video also captured a female NYPD civilian employee who was in the store at the time and appears frozen with fear.
Cops, aided by a license plate number jotted down by a sharp-eyed city bus driver, discover the car at Killings’ Kingston Ave. home - but find no sign of the suspect.
Disgusted detectives said Killings probably tried to knock over the doughnut shop to get money to fill his mom’s gas tank - so he could drive the car to a hearing yesterday in Brooklyn Criminal Court for his 2004 gun arrest.
He never showed.
“He’s not the brightest bulb in the box,” said a detective.
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Cops 3-Pack (Bad Girls / Caught in the Act / Shots Fired)Store manager Shalha Khairkhah, 40, said she recognized Killings on the video as one of two men who robbed her cash register at knifepoint May 17 and got away with $364.
She credited Schiavarelli with saving the day.
The cop has racked up 64 arrests since he graduated from the Police Academy in 2003.
“He saved my employee’s life,” Khairkhah said. “I would like to say, ‘Thank you.’ I am sorry he got hurt.”
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