Robbers Caught on Video, and by Police, at Brooklyn Deli

Police officers foiled a robbery this week at a deli in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, the police said, in a dramatic confrontation, much of it captured on security video.

The officers, Mark Xylas and Favio Quizhpi, were called to the Gourmet Buffalo Deli at Buffalo and Atlantic Avenues around 7:20 p.m. Wednesday about a report of a robbery in progress, and they arrived to see two men pistol-whipping a store worker while trapped customers cowered inside, the police said.

When the officers ordered the men to drop their guns, the men instead fled to the back of the store and kicked in a bathroom door, only to find that it led nowhere.

In the video, the officers can be seen beginning to let customers out (at about 0:20 minutes), as the men, one of whom is carrying a bag of what the police said was grabbed merchandise (0:36), head for the rear of thestore.

The men, realizing that they are trapped, begin an attack on the bathroom door (0:45), kicking a large hole in it and trying to squeeze through even as the door opens outward toward them.

When the bathroom proves to be a dead end, the men appear at a loss for what to do (1:04). They mill and pace around the rear of the store, placing what the police said were cellphones they had stolen from customers on the snack shelves (1:25) and, eventually, tossing money (1:30) that the police said they had also stolen.

Finally, they emerge, one of them tossing a gun by the refrigerators (visible at 1:46), pull down their sweatshirt hoods, raise their hands, and lay down on the floor for the police officers to arrest them (1:50).

The men, identified as Isaiah Henderson, 20, and James Gillespie, 23, both of Brooklyn, were arrested on charges of robbery, weapons possession and unlawful imprisonment. The police said they had recovered a revolver and a se! miautomatic handgun.

The store employee who was beaten was not seriously injured, the police said.

“These officers did a masterful job at not only capturing the armed robbers but at safeguarding the customers,” said Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman.

When the two officers first approached the store door, they saw a woman with two young children, one in a stroller, standing inside the store and feared they would be harmed if there was a gunfight, Mr. Browne said. So the officers backed off until the woman and her children could get out of the store, he said.

“The police officers waited until those gunmen were at the far end of the store and they had an opportunity to get the woman and children out of the store before they confronted the gunmen,” he said. “They did not charge in immediately.”

Mr. Browne also briefly assumed the role of film critic to share his opinion on the security footage.

“My favorite part of the video is when the gnmen, in their hope that the door in front of them is an exit, fail to read the `bathroom’ sign on the door, and then instead of pulling it open toward them, they try to kick it down in the opposite direction,” Mr. Browne said. “It added comic relief to an otherwise deadly situation.”