Hazmat suit gunman arrested for murdering Manhattan deli, ‘another example of avoidable senseless violence’

On Thursday, NYPD arrested a gunman in a hazmat suit wanted for killing a popular Manhattan deli worker during a robbery, according to police.

Kymond Cyrus, a former prisoner who once served time for assault, was wanted for the murder of a popular grocery store clerk and the robbery of at least three other stores – “another example of avoidable senseless violence,” said NYPD Chief Jeffrey Maddrey. . Thursday.

Kymond L. Cyrus, 39, was detained by detectives at the 19th Precinct on Thursday, March 9, 2023.

Cyrus, 39, was caught outside his home in the Bronx around 10:40 a.m. and taken to the 42nd Precinct for questioning, police said.

He was charged with murder and criminal possession of weapons. His indictment in Manhattan Criminal Court was expected late Thursday evening.

The alleged killer of Hazmat is Kymond Cyrus.

The first break in the case came on Sunday when an informant called an NYPD hotline and said he saw a suspect, dressed in a military uniform and riding a blue moped, drive into a wine cellar near Croton Park in the Bronx.

Police then tracked him using a security camera as he entered a nearby apartment building, where he was also caught on camera the night of the murder.

On Tuesday evening, his white hazmat suit was found behind a building on Park Avenue near E. 158th Street in Concourse Village.

Surveillance photos show the masked shooter is wanted for robbing a grocery store in the Bronx on March 3, 2023.

Police tracked the suspect on video after he killed 67-year-old Daona Gourmet Deli worker Sueng Choi by beating him with a gun during a botched robbery on the Upper East Side on Friday.

“It was good old-fashioned police work,” Mayor Adams said at a press conference on Thursday.

The killer, who managed to get away with only a tray of lighters after the murder, had struck two days earlier in Brooklyn, police said.

Daona Sueng Choi's deli employee.

On March 1, he robbed the Super Deli Market on Manhattan Avenue in Greenpoint. The bandit “calmly” demanded all the money in the cash register and five packs of cigarettes.

A similar robbery took place on the night of February 25 at the Sunset Bagel Shop in Ditmas Park. The scammer ordered food, announced the robbery, and then fled with cash and several cell phones, police said.

NYPD officers and detectives investigate a robbery at a grocery store on the corner of 81st Street and Third Avenue in the early hours of March 4, 2023 in Manhattan.

The building behind which the hazmat suit was found is a five-minute walk from Ya Ya Deli at Melrose Avenue and E 160th Street. The con artist robbed this store 22 minutes after Choi’s murder, arriving and leaving on the same scooter. police officers

Maddry said Thursday the department is working to improve the speed at which it notifies the public about crimes, especially those with a set pattern.

“It was another senseless shooting, carried out without any thought or fear of the consequences,” the chief said. “Criminals need to know that they cannot act with impunity.”

Customers were worried about Choi working the night shift alone.

“He knows it’s a dangerous place to work,” Choi’s ex-wife Jenny Chung, 66, told Daily News earlier this week. “I don’t talk to him much, but every time I talk to him on the phone, maybe once a year, he tells me it’s dangerous.”

Mayor Eric Adams speaks during a news conference at NYPD Headquarters on the capture of a hazmat suit killer on Thursday, March 9, 2023, in Manhattan, New York.

Cyrus pleaded guilty to assault in 2003 after a brutal attack in midtown Manhattan a year earlier. He beat the man and splashed a liquid in his eyes that burned him before hitting him over the head with a glass bottle, records show. As his victim lay on the sidewalk, Cyrus pulled his wallet out of his pocket.

He also has a 2009 arrest for drunk driving and a 2020 arrest for bail evasion at Mount Vernon.

Choi’s murder prompted NYPD and Adams to call on store owners to ask shoppers to remove their masks when entering a store — at least long enough for their faces to be visible.

“Once you’ve shown the store owner who you are and that’s okay, if you don’t feel comfortable in the store without a mask, by all means put it back on,” Maddry said on Monday. “But we have to help each other feel safe.”

On Thursday, Adams told reporters that the masks make it harder for police to work and identify suspects.

“Face masks protected us from COVID, but they actually allow criminals to use that,” Hizzoner said, holding a black surgical mask. “We can ensure public safety and health. They go together.”

With Molly Crane-Newman

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