{"id":134817,"date":"2026-02-16T03:36:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T03:36:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/134817\/"},"modified":"2026-02-16T03:36:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T03:36:07","slug":"man-accused-of-nyc-valentines-day-crime-spree","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/134817\/","title":{"rendered":"Man accused of NYC Valentine\u2019s Day crime spree"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">MANHATTAN, N.Y. (PIX11) \u2014 Cupid may have been aiming for hearts this Valentine\u2019s Day, but one man was allegedly targeting businesses around West Midtown.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Police said a man, 36-year-old Jonathan Jones, went on a rampage, hitting several spots.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><a class=\"link \" href=\"https:\/\/pix11.com\/news\/local-news\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:More Local News;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\"> More Local News <\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">At Uncle Jack\u2019s Steakhouse, some front windows are boarded up after a video showed a man smashing them with a barrier around 2:30 a.m. Saturday. He then climbed into the restaurant, and is seen on video going to the bar, drinking from a bottle and throwing it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cRight now, with the doors and this [by the bar] we could say about $50,000 in damage,\u201d said Uncle Jack\u2019s General Manager, Muhammed Yaseen. \u201cThank god there was nobody in the restaurant. There was nobody around here. God knows what could have happened. These days, guns, knives is very common.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Next door at the deli, workers said the man also visited them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cHe pushes the counter, the cashier, this cashier, the snacks, causes trouble and then he left,\u201d said Bakeel Kassem with B&amp;W Deli &amp; Pizzeria.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Where he went, according to police, is several blocks down to the Interfaith Retreats Hostel.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><a class=\"link \" href=\"https:\/\/pix11.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:More: Latest News from Around the Tri-State;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\"> More: Latest News from Around the Tri-State <\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cSomeone rang the doorbell. I step out into the stairwell to receive the person,\u201d said Adi Purusha with Interfaith Community Services.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Then, surveillance video captured Purusha\u2019s interaction with the man, which turned physical.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cThis person is intoxicated, crazy, came running up the stairs, started ripping the fire extinguisher off the wall. \u2018Wait a minute. Stop that.\u2019 There was a bit of a scuffle and he ran out with the fire extinguisher,\u201d said Purusha.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Police said the man put the fire extinguisher to use at the 7-Eleven next door and sprayed it in the store.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cDid a pirouette. Covered 9,000 items with dust,\u201d said Purusha.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Still, Purusha is offering grace.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cThe people that do stuff like this, they\u2019re falling. They\u2019re precipitating out of the liquid of society. They need help. They\u2019re crying out for help,\u201d said Purusha.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Police said Jones was charged with burglary, criminal mischief, robbery and reckless endangerment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><a href=\"https:\/\/pix11.com\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to PIX11.;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \"> For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to PIX11. <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MANHATTAN, N.Y. (PIX11) \u2014 Cupid may have been aiming for hearts this Valentine\u2019s Day, but one man was&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":134818,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[57323,57322,24012,57324,9,56,63,65,64,47697],"class_list":{"0":"post-134817","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-fire-extinguisher","9":"tag-interfaith-community-services","10":"tag-jonathan-jones","11":"tag-muhammed-yaseen","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-ny","14":"tag-nyc","15":"tag-nyc-headlines","16":"tag-nyc-news","17":"tag-valentines-day"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134817"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134817\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/134818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}