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The incident began on Wednesday, March 1, around 5:15 a.m., when sheriff's deputies in Putnam County were sent to a Gulf gas station in Southeast at 1565 Route 22 for an armed robbery, according to the Putnam County Sheriff's Office.
After arriving, deputies found that the suspect had already fled the gas station. After some investigation, deputies determined that the suspect had entered the store, pointed a gun at the clerk's head, and demanded money before leaving with over $6,000 in cash and around $350 worth of cigarette cartons.
After deputies were provided photos of the suspect's vehicle by a "very observant customer," an alert was then sent out to police departments in the area, sheriff's deputies said.
Later that morning, around 6:10 a.m., a Westchester County PD officer found the suspect's vehicle on Interstate 287 near Interstate 684 in the town of Harrison and then began chasing it. The vehicle then drove the wrong way on Westchester Avenue before crashing near the entrance of the Hutchinson River Parkway.
Still refusing to give up, the suspect then began fighting Westchester officers before he was finally taken into custody. Police then learned that the vehicle he had been driving had been stolen from New York City.
The suspect, identified as 28-year-old Suffolk County resident Jose Nievas, of Brentwood, was then turned over to the Putnam County Sheriff's Office and charged with the following:
- Second-degree robbery;
- Third-degree grand larceny;
- Criminal possession of stolen property.
Nievas is currently being held in the Putnam County Correctional Facility on $50,000 cash bail or $100,000 bond.
He is also being investigated as a suspect in other armed robberies that happened in New York City, Suffolk and Nassau Counties, and Westchester County, where authorities believe he may have committed a similar robbery in the town of North Castle after stealing from the Southeast gas station.
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