Pizza Delivery Man on Bicycle Helps Catch Robber: Police

Alou Bathily, who works as a deliveryman for Domino’s on 72nd Street near Broadway, was making a delivery at 3 p.m. on a Friday late last month when he saw police chasing a man. Bathily was “inspired to help by action movies he saw as a child,” according to the Daily News:

Bathily, who hails from Mali, said he shouted to the cops as he peddled faster and gave chase. About a block and a half into it, he said he dropped his bike and jumped on the suspect, who was by then in the street.

Alou came to America 2 months ago & works hard delivering @Dominos pizza. Last week, it came with a side of justice! My thanks to him for helping NY’s Finest apprehend a robbery suspect — sharing the responsibility of public safety. Alou exemplifies what makes NYC great!@ABC7NY pic.twitter.com/wRWyhFjNzk

— Terence Monahan (@TerenceMonahan) April 6, 2019

The 20th precinct described the incident below:

“On the evening of March 29th, Sgt. William Rivera and his Neighborhood Coordination Officers were out hunting for perpetrators wanted for robbing a female victim of her AirPod headphones. The team had almost given-up the hunt one hour after the robbery, when they spotted one of the suspects. The suspect ignored officers’ verbal instructions to stop and began running across West 72nd street toward Broadway.

Here’s the first cool part… A Domino’s Pizza deliveryman on a bicycle saw the pursuit, yelled “I’ll stop him officers!”, peddled ahead of the fleeing perp, and pulled the bicycle across his path, delaying the perp just long enough for Sgt. Rivera and Officers Jack Etter, Delilah Solis, Darnell Jones, and Bridget Fanning to catch up and apprehended the suspect in a safe manner. The victim was driven to the scene by detectives and a show-up was conducted with positive results.

Here’s the second cool part… While the suspect was running he was throwing fake $50 bills out of his pockets. In addition to committing a robbery, he had also used the counterfeit cash at two stores, where he bought small, cheap items with the fake bills to obtain real cash as change from the purchase. The perpetrator, Lovell Ambrister, has seven prior arrests that include robbery and grand larceny. Yeah, he’s in jail now, and we’re told the pizza guy still managed to honor the 30 minute delivery guarantee on the pie.”