10-year-old boy beaten and robbed in the Bronx

Josh Einiger Image
Saturday, September 20, 2014
10-year-old boy beaten and robbed in the Bronx
Josh Einiger reports from the Mount Eden section.

MOUNT EDEN (WABC) -- A 10-year-old boy was punched and robbed of his bike. The boy's father says it's too dangerous for his son in the Mount Eden section of the Bronx and is sending him back to their home country of Yemen.

Should it really be too much to ask for a 10-year-old to be able to ride his bike in peace?

"He punched me and I fell and he took my bike and he go," said Amro Munassar, the robbery victim.

But just after dark Thursday night, as Amro Munassar tried to walk his bike up the steps of his Mount Eden apartment building, a thug sitting on the steps punched him with no warning, grabbed his bike, and ran off with it.

"You know, what are you going to do?" Amro Munassar said.

"It's not safe out here anymore," said Fahmi Munassar, Amro's father.

His father Fahmi works in a candy store around the corner. Thursday night he ran to find the man, but he and the bike were gone.

Police are reviewing video from an NYPD security camera on the corner; and they've papered the neighborhood with flyers, but Amro's dad has had about enough of the Bronx.

"It's scary and that's why I'm taking him back to his grandma, his grandma, in Yemen," Fahmi Munassar said.

Yes, he's convinced Yemen is a safer place for Amro to grow up, than this stretch of the Grand Concourse

"I don't know, I mean in the Bronx I can't even send him to the supermarket by himself." Fahmi Munassar said. "Over there it's just a neighborhood, nobody would steal anything from a baby. Adults would kill each other, but they wouldn't kill no baby."