Armed robbery fails to deter New York pizza delivery man

Pizza-delivery man Assami Semde fought off a gun-toting punk in East Harlem, New York - and still managed to deliver two piping-hot pizzas. Mr Semde, 19, was headed to the 25th floor at a building last Friday, carrying two pizzas from a Famous Famiglia parlour, when he was accosted in the hallway.

Waiting for an answer at the door where he was to deliver the pizzas, Mr Semde was cornered by two teens wearing hoodies and bandanas. One of them "put a gun to my head and said, 'Give me the pizza,'" Mr Semde said. "I thought it was a strange game."



He put the pizzas on the ground, but when the gunman bent to get them, "I punched him and pushed him against the elevator," said Mr Semde. The other would-be thief joined the scuffle, but the delivery man got the best of them. The gunman screamed and ran off but Mr Semde held the other teen, Albert Alvarez, until cops showed up, authorities said. Mr Alvarez, 19, was arrested for attempted robbery, authorities said.

Mr Semde's boss, Frank Grecco - a retired New York Police Department detective with 22 years on the force - called him "very courageous" but added, "I told him, 'Next time, leave the pizza!'" Mr Semde agreed: "It's crazy. I think it's better not to fight." Mr Semde, who left his native Burkina Faso four months ago to study English, said that although the West African country is one of world's poorest, it is "better emotionally" than the US. "How can kids get guns? In my country, even for adults it's hard to get guns," he said.