Women in East Flatbush can rest easy — the pistol-packing purloiner targeting them is behind bars thanks to some perspicacious victims, a dead-on sketch and a little bit of luck.
Police said that Lanell Dowling looked so much like the sketch of the mugger cops were looking for, it was almost scary.
“I’ve never seen something like that before,” Inspector Corey Pegues, the commanding officer of the 67th Precinct said Monday, a day after Dowling was in custody.
The sketch was so clear that someone called the NYPD Tip Line telling the operator that the man in the sketch’s nickname was “Country” and that he hung out on Church Avenue.
“We ran every criminal who hung out in that area, about 100 pictures and we found one who looked exactly like the sketch,” Pegues said, adding that he had an army of forty officers looking for the thug.
When they showed the picture to the victims, their answer was unanimous.
“‘That’s the guy!’” Pegues remembered them screaming.
Dowling was ultimately nabbed in Queens after cops traced his cell phone. He’s currently on the hook for at least three robberies that date back to March 29.
Officials allege that Dowling held up a 75-year-old woman he confronted inside a New York Avenue building. Five minutes later he allegedly pistol-whipped a 57-year-old woman in the same building and fled with her property.
Within a few hours, he struck again, this time on East 48th Street, said police.
His last heist took place just before 7 am on March 30 when he repeatedly pistol-whipped a 59-year-old woman at Church Avenue and East 48th Street and ran off with her bag, officials said.
