The NYPD on Tuesday clashed with migrant vendors and confiscated their apparently stolen merchandise on a troubled Jackson Heights block known for its illicit open-air market and hookers on the prowl.
Police raided the spot for the second day in a row after many of the illegal vendors fled when designated spotters apparently tipped them off that cops were on the way.
The raid came after The Post’s coverage of the a spot that had one local store manager complaining of the “relentless” shenanigans.
On Tuesday, cops were back at it — converging on a triangular block bound by Roosevelt Avenue, Elmhurst Avenue and 91st Street around 1 p.m. to scoop up apparel items from about 10 vendors who had displayed the apparently stolen wares on blankets for sale.
Mateo Hipolito Dominguez was thrown to the ground by an officer as cops confiscated his goods after an officer was heard accusing him of brandishing a box cutter.
“How am I going to hurt a detective? Are you crazy? That f–king black guy is crazy,” said the man about the policeman’s accusation.
“This dark-skinned guy [officer] threw me on the ground over some shoes. I’m over here working to take care of my family – they don’t go after people who are actually bad. But we are here working and they’re trying to f–k with us,” Dominguez told reporters in Spanish.
“Why are cops always trying to mess with us? What are we doing? We’re just trying to maintain our families but they take our stuff,” said the man, as he moaned in pain from an apparent arm injury suffered in the kerfuffle.
When asked if he had a permit to sell his goods, he said, “No, but we’re not stealing. No one does anything against the people who are actually stealing. But they come after us.”
Police also confiscated goods from vendor Alexandra Carcha, and took them away in a large white van.
“All of the trash, everything they recycle, they leave it on the ground. But what I think is unfair is that when they confiscate things, they assault people. That’s not right,” Carcha said in Spanish.
“They assaulted an elderly man,” Carcha claimed.
“Three police officers grabbed him and kicked him out. I felt bad for him because, just like me, he was working and making his money.”
Carcha said she had not tried to apply for a permit because she doubted that it would be granted.
“Before me, my mother had requested a permit five years ago so she could informally work. She never got it. Do you think I’m going to have better luck than her?” the woman asked.
Maria Aravello’s table of jeans and leggings was seized by cops in Monday’s raid, even after she said she tried to show them a certificate of authenticity issued to her by the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance.
“The police took my table, my leggings. I bought leggings, new ones. I’m a single mother with three children and I need the money, because I have to pay for my taxes every three months. The police take, take, take,” Aravello said.
Several clusters of female prostitutes were also spotted by The Post on Roosevelt Avenue in the early afternoon hours.
While some tables of accessories hawking items like purses, wallets and sunglasses were set up, there was little sign of the thriving market regularly seen at the site.
Stolen merchandise stored in vans parked nearby had been put up for resale at a steep discount on the sidewalk — everything from expensive power tools to inexpensive items like mouthwash and diapers.
Milton Reyes, manager of Mi Farmacia in Jackson Heights, said shoplifters would ransack his store and brazenly sell the goods on the sidewalk outside while prostitutes proposition passersby and madams usher them to makeshift brothels.
“It’s relentless,” Reyes told The Post Sunday.
“You should see it on Saturdays. It’s so heavy, you can’t even step onto the sidewalk. There are a lot of doctors’ offices right around here and my customers don’t even want to get dropped off.”
The Post has reached out to the NYPD about the confiscated items.
A reporter didn’t witness any arrests.
Mayor Eric Adams said the lawless situation had been exacerbated by the more than 190,000 migrants that had arrived in the city over the past two years.
“The Roosevelt Avenue [problem], what your paper has pointed out, you know, that’s a byproduct,” he said in reponse to an question from a Post reporter.
“You know, the some of the problems we’re facing, you know, in our city, this is the byproduct of bringing thousands of people to a city and telling them, they cannot work.”
