NYC food vendor attacked outside City Hall in $20K ‘shakedown’
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February 11, 2023 | 18:52
A longtime City Hall food truck vendor was hit multiple times in the legs and back with a tire iron Saturday — allegedly by a rival’s enforcer who was trying to shake him off for $20,000, witnesses said.
Izzad Hassan Suleiman — a 43-year-old father of three from Queens who has sold hot dogs, kebabs and other food from a food truck in City Hall Park for more than a decade — showed The Post video of the thug who appeared on a public square opposite the city. street from the Brooklyn Bridge walkway around 8:00 am
The man was in a white van with a breakfast cart attached, and almost hit him, Suleiman charged.
The bespectacled alleged burglar, identified by police as Felix Noel, then jumped out of the truck and ran around the square like a madman, video shows.
He swung a yellow tire iron and hit Suleiman at least five times – leaving the vendor screaming in pain on the ground as his wife and children looked on in horror.
Noel, 62, was arrested and charged with assault and uttering threats, police said. He insisted on going back to his truck and putting on his Salvation Army cap before being escorted by the police.
The alleged assailant Felix Noel (62) was arrested by the police for an alleged shaking attempt. Provided food vendor Izzad Hassan Suleiman gets medical attention after he was attacked with a crowbar for allegedly refusing to pay a shaker artist $20,000. William Farrington
Suleiman, an Egyptian immigrant from Jersey City, claimed Noel was just muscle and that the mastermind behind the attack was a man who was shaking down food vendors for cash.
He claimed the man ripped him off for $40,000 in 2018 and recently returned to demand another $20,000 payment.
“He does this to everyone in the city, we know about this guy,” Suleiman claimed through a translator. “Now he wants more money, but this time we’re done with him … It’s a busy area, and it’s making a lot of money and he wants the area.”
The seller and his family and friends claim they complained to the police, but that the man, whom they likened to the “mafia” and a “kingpin”, could repeatedly break the law.
Neither the alleged “kingpin” nor Noel could be reached for comment.
The alleged ringleader is seen in the video trying to stop the attacker from using the tire iron, on at least one occasion taking it out of his hand and putting it back in the truck. However, Noel became more enraged when Suleiman and some of his entourage began taking video of the incident with their smartphones – and attacked the vendor anyway, the clip shows.
A bandaged NYPD officer caught on video in the violent attack. William Farrington Food truck veteran Izzad Hassan Suleiman is recovering at a local hospital, hours after being beaten by a suspected competitor’s thug. William Farrington
Suleiman’s son, Hassan (12), said hours after the incident, his father was taken to a local hospital and could barely walk from the pain in his back and legs. He expected his father to be back on his feet in a few days.
Saturday’s attack drew comparisons to a 2015 Post report about a Jewish kosher food purveyor who claimed he was stopped from selling sandwiches piled high with brisket or pastrami from a Holy Rollers cart near Rockefeller Center
https://nypost.com/2023/02/11/nyc-food-vendor-attacked-outside-city-hall-in-20k-shakedown/?utm_source=url_sitebuttons&utm_medium=site%20buttons&utm_campaign=site%20buttons
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