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Hook bus company robbed at gunpoint

By Mike McLaughlin
The Brooklyn Paper

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Four masked men held up a charter bus company on Sigourney Street in a brazen midday heist on Nov. 25 that was reminiscent of Red Hook’s lawless past — except this robbery came with a twist: someone called to tip off the victim seconds before the crime went down.

A woman answered Best Trail and Travel’s phone at 1 pm and was told by the person on the other end that there were people — people with guns — running around the company’s parking lot between Otsego and Columbia streets.

She opened the front door to find a man with a stocking over his head and a gun pointed in her face.

According to the police report, the woman wrestled with the masked man, but gave up when she realized there were three more disguised assailants behind him with firearms of their own.

The men forced themselves in and the six employees were bound with wire.

Fifteen minutes after storming the building, the marauders left with a combined $9,180, several phones, a Blackberry and a variety of credit cards.

The plot must have been carefully orchestrated, because there’s no sign on the building to indicate the company’s presence, said Sam Goldstein, who owns the 15-year-old company.

“Somebody must have been talking about us,” Goldstein told The Brooklyn Paper. “Maybe it was an inside job — that’s what the police are supposed to figure out.”

For now, Goldstein is just trying to console his employees.

“You don’t want to know what it’s like,” he said. “It’s a trauma.”

©2008 Community Newspaper Group

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