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Anyway you slice it, these pizza makers are a lower above.
The father and son combo who thwarted a violent mugging exterior their Queens store almost a 12 months in the past have a message for crime-weary New Yorkers: Don’t quit hope — or your lease.
“We’re the true New Yorkers. We don’t run from stuff like this. I used to be born and raised on this metropolis,” a defiant Louie Suljovic instructed The Post this week.
Suljovic, 39, and his father, Cazim Suljovic, 69, were each stabbed and suffered a collapsed lung within the March 26 incident, needed to shut their store for over a month — however by no means as soon as thought to flee the Big Apple, they instructed The Post.
Nearly a 12 months later they’re nonetheless slinging slices — and smiling.
“This is my dwelling [the pizzeria]. I’m there 90 hours every week,” army veteran Louie defined. “I see the youngsters [in the neighborhood] develop up, I see the youngsters get married after which they convey their very own households to my store. These are my buddies, these are my relations. Nobody goes to push me from my dwelling. These are my neighbors.”
“My dad. They don’t make males like him anymore,” he added. “He’s very head-strong, very strong-willed and nothing goes to push him out.”
Louie and Cazim had been toiling at their Baxter Avenue pizzeria in Elmhurst when the daddy noticed Eun Hee Chang, 61, being mugged outside of their restaurant.
The sufferer was shoved to the bottom, stabbed, and robbed.
“I see a girl on the ground and three folks round her. I say, ‘What are they doing?’ They’re robbing her,” Cazim recounted.
The feisty senior ran out of the eatery to assist and known as Louie to comply with. The youthful Suljovic caught as much as the brazen bandits and “wasn’t going to let go,” Louie mentioned.
Louie was stabbed as soon as within the again and his dad was knifed 9 instances — they every suffered a collapsed lung. Louie spent just a few days in Elmhurst Hospital, and his dad just a few weeks. Louie’s Pizzeria was closed till early May.
Two males, Robert Whack, 30, and Supreme Gooding, 18, had been arrested and charged with theft, assault, and legal possession of a weapon. The pair had been indicted a month later on tried homicide within the Elmhurst assault and for a separate assault on a 75-year-old girl 10 days earlier, in response to the Queens District Attorney’s workplace.
“People like this could have by no means been out within the first place. But since we’ve got a horrible bail system and bail reform they might have been jailed for different issues. Our system failed us,” Louie mentioned.
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Louie’s has no plan for a brand new pizza to mark their valor, however maybe a “Humble Pie” is an order.
“We’ve been making an attempt to put low and beneath the radar,” Louie mentioned, including, “We are identified for our grandma pie — and it’s completely scrumptious.”
Chang, the lady allegedly focused by Whack and Gooding, has been in “a couple of times” for the reason that terror.
“She’s powerful too,” mentioned Louie.
He’s thought of marking the anniversary of the assault by some means however doesn’t lose sleep over the nasty incident.
“I dream about what I gotta do the subsequent day. Two slices and a soda,” Louie mentioned. “I’m about to show 40. It’s one other day in paradise.”
