Video shows a pack of pipsqueak youths — including an 11-year-old migrant boy — rush through a Queens subway station moments after pulling off a violent mugging.
The Venezuelan migrant child can be seen wearing a white tank top and grinning widely as he pushes his way through a turnstile Tuesday evening, footage exclusively obtained by The Post shows.
Three other pint-size perps also run through the turnstiles in the Vernon Boulevard-Jackson Avenue stop, near where they — led by the 11-year-old main “aggressor” — allegedly attacked a 24-year-old straphanger aboard a 7 train and stole his phone, police said.
The pee-wee “aggressor,” who was nabbed by cops along with a 17-year-old boy in Midtown hours after the shocking robbery, has been linked to a spate of robberies in Central Park carried out by migrant kids, said NYPD Chief of Patrol John Chell.
“At this point in time, we are ready to call it: This is a migrant robbery pattern,” he said.
The boy and his mother denied the accusations against him Thursday when The Post visited the Roosevelt Hotel migrant shelter, where the family has been staying.
“They didn’t catch him doing anything,” the mom said.
The mother said she had just been released from a hospital, where she gave birth to a girl five days ago – her fourth child, according to other residents in the shelter.
One neighborly man said the 11-year-old boy is a “little rebellious” and disobedient.
“When the mother is asleep, he leaves the room without permission,” he said.
“Of course it’s wrong but he doesn’t want to listen to his mother. He doesn’t pay attention.”
The boy has stayed at the migrant shelter with his family since last year, said Kataleya, 44, a fellow Venezuelan asylum seeker.
Kataleya said children in the shelter didn’t go around committing crimes while they lived in Venezuela.
“They didn’t do that or elsewhere … that happens here,” she said.
She said children “are locked up in the shelter all day at the moment” and “[when] they go out on the streets, I think that’s why they do those things.”
Sara, a 34-year-old Colombian migrant living in the shelter, said she didn’t know the boy, but was dumbfounded to learn his age.
“He is only 11 years old, yes?” she said in shock, with her mouth open wide, as she peered at a picture showing the handcuffed youth.
“There are many children who smoke and drink,” she said, pointing to her eyes and down, indicating she had seen them puffing marijuana in the past. “They take turns, they pass it around.”
A group of up to 12 migrant boys or young men have been linked to roughly 10 robberies in Central Park, Chell said.
Police are investigating whether the violent Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua has been enlisting young boys to commit robberies such as the wave of Central Park muggings, a senior law enforcement official previously told The Post.
The 11-year-old suspected in the subway mugging was caught on surveillance cameras using credit cards that were stolen in the park robberies, police officials said.
His mom denied that he was involved in the gang, saying, “He is a child.”
The identities of the other youths in the subway footage remained unclear as of Thursday. Two youngsters linked to the mugging remained on the loose.
