Mother Struck By Vehicle, Beaten In Brutal Queens Robbery
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Police are looking for the man who beat and robbed a mother in Queens over the weekend.
Her stolen items were found on the suspect of another crime that same night.
"I truly felt like my mom was gonna die in my arms," Jayden Espinal told CBS2's Ali Bauman.
Espinal is the one who found his mother bloody, beaten and bruised early Sunday morning around the corner from their house in Flushing.
"I hear a loud bang like a car collision," he said. "I hear my mom screaming 'help me.' I know my mom's voice, so I obviously ran and then when I go see, she's bleeding from her mouth."
Espinal and his sisters, Darah Diaz and Thalia Diaz, say their 44-year-old mom, a home health aide, was driving back from a friend's house around 2 a.m. and parked nearby on Booth Memorial Avenue.
"When she got out of the car ... she noticed that there was a car double-parked with the lights off," Thalia Diaz said.
Their mom saw a strange man behind the wheel.
"He reversed all the way back and he, like, floored it and hit her and pinned her against the car," Espinal said.
"He emerged out of the car and just straight went attacking her, and then he started beating her face," Darah Diaz said.
Police say the man stole her purse with her credit cards and drove off. She's being treated for a broken leg, dislocated shoulder and other injuries.
"My mom said she just thought about her grandchildren when he was beating her 'cause she thought she was gonna die," Darah Diaz said.
Two hours later and four miles away, a family in Jamaica was woken up by a man with a backpack who hopped their fence, broken in and slashed their father. The father chased the intruder out with a garbage bin, swung at him with a bat and called police.
When police arrived, they arrested a 17-year-old suspect who was seen fleeing the burglary. Sources tell CBS2 officers searched him and found the credit cards that had been stolen from the mother in Flushing earlier that night.
"He has to have some kind of link or connection to what happened," Thalia Diaz said.
Police charged the burglary suspect with possession of stolen property but have not charged him for the robbery or assault in Flushing. That case remains open without any arrests.
