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Feb 29, 2008 7:47 am US/Eastern

Seeking Help Against Thief, Shopkeepers Get Ticket

NEW YORK (AP) ― Two Queens shopkeepers say they asked a city sanitation enforcement agent for help catching an armed shoplifter, but all she gave them was a littering ticket.

Nabil and Hussein Munasser, who are brothers, say they spotted the agent while chasing a thief who took a roll of duct tape from their family's 99-cent store on Feb. 18. They say they asked the agent to call police on her radio, and she said she couldn't.

The brothers say they backed off after the thief brandished a knife, and then the agent had something for them: a $100 ticket citing them with litter outside the Sutphin Boulevard shop.

City Sanitation Department spokesman Matthew LiPani says the agency's radios aren't directly linked to police, and agents aren't told they need to intervene if they see a crime in progress—any more than "any other citizen."

(© 2008 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

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