A pair of machete-wielding Brooklyn bodega owners turned the tide on three thugs – sending them screaming from the store and later tracking down the trio for the cops.
Laison Evans, 20, Andre Avant, 20, and Jose Pichardo, 23, allegedly tried to rip off $2,000 in cigarettes from the S & J Meat Market on Fifth Avenue in Bay Ridge, but suffered a sudden drop in testosterone when they met resistance.
“[They are] big thugs, and they’re screaming like girls,” said Mohammed Othman, 23, one of three brothers who runs the store.
Mohammed said he was minding the counter when the men entered around 7 p.m. Monday asking to use the bathroom. When they didn’t emerge for a while, he sent his older brother Sammy to check on them.
Sammy, 35, said he found Avant and Pichardo standing outside an empty restroom. He grabbed two kitchen knives and checked the upstairs storage room, where Evans was allegedly walking out with a backpack full of Marlboros and Newports.
Not wanting to use the knives on Evans, who he believed wasn’t armed, Sammy punched him in the face.
“He didn’t have nothing at all, or it would’ve been a different situation,” he said.
Meanwhile, Mohammed grabbed a foot-and-a-half-long machete from behind the register and moved in, only to see Evans barreling down the stairs, yelling, “Run! Run! Run!” to his buddies.
Out on the street, Mohammed grappled with Evans against a parked car, but let him go after being bitten on the left index finger.
Sammy, meanwhile, pursued Avant into a nearby deli and cornered him. The perpetrator whipped out a four-inch blade, Sammy said.
“Don’t do it,” Sammy, still wielding one of the kitchen knives, warned. “My knife’s bigger than yours.”
Cops arrived shortly thereafter, collaring Avant and Pichardo.
But a last burst of idiocy helped nail the third. Back in the bodega, the brothers found a cellphone ringing amid the strewn cigarette packs.
“Where are you?” asked Mohammed, pretending to be one of the perps.
“I’m at 83rd and Third!” came the reply. Mohammed told the cops, who made the third arrest.
Mohammed, who said he plans to become a cop, said it was the first time the store had been robbed.
“A couple weeks ago I was sitting here, looking at my knife wondering, am I ever going to use this?” he said.