The video shows a group of young people, including an 11-year-old immigrant boy, storming into a subway station in Queens moments after carrying out a violent robbery.
In footage obtained exclusively by The Washington Post, the Venezuelan migrant boy is seen walking through the turnstiles on Tuesday evening wearing a white tank top and sporting a broad smile.
Police say three other small-sized assailants also passed through the ticket barriers at the Vernon Boulevard-Jackson Avenue station, where the ringleader, an 11-year-old boy, allegedly led the charge and attacked a 24-year-old strap attendant on the Platform 7 train, stealing her cell phone.
The young “perpetrator,” who was arrested by police in Midtown along with a 17-year-old boy just hours after the shocking robbery, may be linked to a series of robberies committed by immigrant children in Central Park, NYPD Sergeant John Chell said.
“At this point, we can say with certainty that this is an act of robbery by immigrants,” he said.
The identities of the other young people seen in the subway footage remained unknown as of Thursday, and the two young people involved in the robbery remain at large.
The 11-year-old boy has been staying at the Roosevelt Hotel migrant shelter since last year with his mother and three siblings, Cataleya, 44, a fellow asylum seeker from Venezuela who is staying at the hotel, told The Post on Thursday.
Cataleya said the children at the shelter had not committed any crimes while living in Venezuela.
“They don’t do that, and it doesn’t happen anywhere else… it happens here,” she said.
She said the children are “currently confined to the shelters.”[when] I guess they go out into the city and do that kind of thing.”
Sara, a 34-year-old Colombian immigrant living at the shelter, said she didn’t know the boy but was stunned to learn his age.
“He’s only 11, right?” she said, mouth agape and in shock, as she stared at a photo of the handcuffed boy.
“A lot of kids smoke and drink,” she said, pointing down to her eyes, indicating that she’s seen them smoking marijuana in the past. “They take turns passing it around.”
Groups of up to 12 immigrant boys or young men may have been involved in about 10 of the robberies in Central Park, Chell said.
A senior law enforcement official previously told The Washington Post that police were investigating whether a Venezuelan gang known as the Tren de Aragua gang was hiring juveniles to carry out robberies like the one in Central Park.
Police officials said an 11-year-old boy suspected in the subway robbery was seen on surveillance camera using a credit card stolen in the park robbery.
