Friend of NYC deli clerk killed by hazmat-suit gunman worried he worked a solo shift

A close pal of a murdered night-shift Upper East Side deli worker was worried for the elderly clerk’s safety even before he was shot dead by robber in a hazmat suit.

The 67-year-old victim, who was killed Friday in what police believe to be a string of stick-ups, survived an earlier robbery scare last year with the help of his friend, who stayed in the store so he wouldn’t be alone.

“I said, ‘Mike. I don’t think you should be here by yourself,’” Helen Rambert, 67, recalled of a conversation she had with the victim.

He was working inside Daona Deli and Grocery on E. 81st St. and Third Ave. when the gunman killed him around 11:20 p.m. Friday.

Police have note yet released the victim’s full name, though neighbors and friends set up a small memorial outside the deli, identifying him as “Michael.”

Rambert recalled an incident from last year when she came into the store at 3 a.m. to find her friend terrified that another customer inside might rob him. So she stayed in the deli until the man left.

“Once the guy walked out the store, he hugged me so tight. He squeezed me. He said, ‘Thank you. Thank you so much ... I think the guy was trying to rob me,’” she told the Daily News. “Ever since then, we were like two peas in the pod.”

Rambert, who’s lived in the neighborhood for 15 years, often goes out at night and would see Michael whenever she made an early-morning shopping visit.

“He’s the night worker. He has been very close to me and I’ve been very close to him. We joke around and stuff like that,” she said. “Sometimes late night — 1, 2 o’clock in the morning — I would come and get my items and he’s there.”

As long as a decade ago, she fretted over his safety on the night shift.

“I asked him. I said, ‘Mike, why are you working here late night by yourself?’”

His response was, “Oh, it’s OK. I’ll be OK,” she recalled.

The victim was standing behind the counter Friday night when the robber, dressed in a mask and a head-to-toe white hazmat suit, walked in and demanded a customer get down on the floor and empty his pockets, police sources said.

The customer complied and the gunman turned his attention to Michael, hitting him in the head with the butt of his gun, the sources said.

The robber walked to the back of the store and the customer fled — hearing a shot ring out as he ran, sources said.

The bullet ripped through the victim’s left hand, then hit his head.

Another friend, Alan Mandel, 71, said he saw Michael about an hour earlier when he went to get a cup of coffee.

“I know Mike was on duty. And no one was in the store,” Mandel said. “We had our greetings. ‘Medium?’ ' Yeah.’ ‘How many sugar?’ ‘Three’ ... And we just had a little chat.”

Michael was vigilant but kind, and would often allow homeless people to come in from the cold, Mandel said.

“Even if they don’t admit it, everyone is worried and looks over their shoulder at night,” he said of the neighborhood.

About a half-hour later, an armed man in a Tyvek-style hazmat suit robbed YaYa Deli in the Bronx, on Melrose Ave. and E. 160th St., said police. The two crime scenes are about 5 miles apart.

The manager said a second man in a similar suit kept lookout.

Police are looking into whether two Brooklyn robberies — one on Feb. 25, the other March 1 — were committed by the killer, sources said. In both cases, the crook wore a Tyvek suit.

In the March 1, robbery a hazmat-suit wearing stickup man robbed the Super Deli Market on Manhattan Ave. in Greenpoint.

A worker told The News that the bandit walked to the back of the store, took out a six-pack of Tecate beer and placed it in this camouflage book bag, motioned towards a food delivery driver inside the store and showed a gun to the cashier.

The gunman “calmly” demanded all the money in the register, “no less than $1,500,” and five cartons of cigarettes, the worker recalled. “As he pointed the gun at me, a customer walked in and immediately ran out.”

“In the moment I just felt surprised, like shocked something like that would happen in this neighborhood. It was my first time getting robbed,” he said. “When you see a mask and a hazmat suit nowadays, it looks normal with all those COVID things.”