Hunt on for suspects following shooting death of beloved Staten Island deli owner
NEW YORK -- The search is on for suspects in the shooting death of a beloved husband and father. The violent encounter happened over the weekend inside a deli on Staten Island.
CBS New York spoke to the store owner's devastated widow on Monday.
Khadijeh Abu Abed held tightly onto her two children, a 6-year-old boy and 8-year-old girl -- her only family left in this country after losing her husband to a botched robbery attempt.
"I closed the door. I said, 'No, you are joking. I am sure you are joking he will come soon.' I'm waiting until 1:30. He didn't come," Abed said.
Surveillance video released by police shows two masked men pulling up to Manor Deli and Convenience on Staten Island just before 8 p.m. on Saturday. In the next clip, they're seen running out in a panic, empty-handed, after shooting 35-year-old Sam Khateeb in the chest.
"I left an hour before it happened. We said bye, see you tomorrow, and tomorrow came and he wasn't there," convenience store employee Jennifer McKinzie said.
McKinzie and Azmina Cloritza are both family friends and store employees. They said Khateeb recently bought the business thinking it was in a safe neighborhood, adding he intended to one day pass it to his son.
"This, this is what you all left. Why? You didn't have to do that. You ruined so many lives. For what? Just turn yourself in," Cloritza said, referring to the children left behind.
Police say the suspects first tried robbing a smoke shop on Richmond Avenue earlier that day, but couldn't get through the door. They then drove to Khateeb's store four miles away.
Friends are baffled why the men resorted to violence, saying Khateeb was in the back stockroom, far away from the register.
"He was really good to everybody. Everybody loved him," McKinzie said.
His grieving widow, who is now planning to move back to Jordan, said she only has one wish, that "they will catch them soon."
Police say the suspects drove away in a red or maroon-colored Jeep Cherokee that didn't have a license plate. It was last seen heading into New Jersey on the Staten Island Expressway.