A 77-year-old man stepping off an elevator near Wallace Avenue and Pelham Parkway North was confronted by a stranger who displayed a knife and forcibly ripped the necklace from his neck before pedaling away on a bicycle. The robbery happened around 2 p.m. last Wednesday inside a residential building in the East Bronx neighborhood, and the suspect remains unidentified.
According to NYPD Crime Stoppers, the unidentified individual approached the elderly victim as he exited the elevator, displayed the knife, and forcibly removed his necklace before fleeing the scene in an unknown direction on a bicycle. No further description of the suspect has been released. The incident falls under Robbery in the First Degree, a Class B violent felony under New York Penal Law Section 160.15(3), since forcibly stealing property while displaying a dangerous instrument like a knife triggers the higher charge, according to FindLaw. Class B violent felonies carry mandatory prison sentences upon conviction, per the same statute.
🚨WANTED FOR A ROBBERY: On Wednesday, August 5, 2026, at approximately 2:00 P.M., at a residential building in the vicinity of Wallace Avenue and Pelham Parkway North, a 77-year-old male victim was exiting an elevator when he was approached by an unidentified individual. The… pic.twitter.com/O30uTgLZ3i
— NYPD Crime Stoppers (@NYPDTips) August 7, 2026
A Precinct Already Seeing More Robberies
The location near Wallace Avenue and Pelham Parkway North falls under the jurisdiction of the NYPD's 49th Precinct, headquartered at 2121 Eastchester Road and responsible for policing Pelham Parkway, Allerton, Morris Park, Van Nest, Eastchester Gardens, and Pelham Gardens, per the New York City government's precinct listings. That command has watched robbery numbers climb through 2026: CompStat data covering the week through August 2 shows robbery complaints in the 49th Precinct up 18.6% year-to-date, with 191 reported incidents compared to 161 during the same stretch of 2025. The increase builds on a broader trend, as total major crimes in the precinct rose 6.84% in 2025 versus 2024, reaching 2,266 incidents driven largely by robbery, burglary, and grand theft auto, according to a Bronx crime-data roundup.
The precinct had historically been viewed as one of the safer commands in the Bronx, which makes the recent uptick notable to residents along the Wallace Avenue corridor. That stretch has seen isolated violent incidents before: in September 2022, four men were shot outside a Pelham Parkway NYCHA complex on Wallace Avenue in broad daylight, an attack detailed by CBS New York, and all four victims survived. Years earlier, in March 2021, detectives investigated an armed home invasion near Wallace Avenue and Pelham Parkway South in which two assailants shot a 32-year-old resident inside his apartment, according to the Norwood News.
Elderly Victim Protections and an Open Question on Video
New York law also includes enhanced provisions for offenses against older victims, such as Penal Law Section 120.05(12), which elevates assault charges when a victim is 65 or older and does not require prosecutors to prove the defendant knew the victim's exact age, per court records cited by FindLaw. It remains unclear whether investigators have recovered elevator or lobby surveillance footage of the suspect fleeing on the bicycle — residential building cameras in Pelham Parkway have previously helped identify suspects in other local robbery cases, including a Hoodline report on an armed ambush that unfolded after suspects discussed a weapon inside a building elevator on nearby Thwaites Place. A separate Hoodline story from earlier this year covered an 18-year-old lured into a violent, gunpoint robbery near Waring and Bronxwood avenues, just blocks from Pelham Parkway.
The 49th Precinct now falls under Patrol Borough Bronx North, a command created in May 2026 when the NYPD split its Bronx Patrol Bureau into two separate borough commands to localize investigative resources, according to the City of New York. Anyone with information about the robbery is asked to contact NYPD Crime Stoppers at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477), or Spanish speakers can call 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). Tips can also be submitted through the Crime Stoppers website or the X account @NYPDTips, and all calls are kept strictly confidential. Crime Stoppers is offering a reward of up to $3,500 for information leading to an arrest and indictment in the case.
