A 35-year-old man shot in the ankle and robbed of his $42,000 Rolex while visiting his Manhattan tailor later died from a blood clot, according to police.
Two ex-cons were arrested for shooting him and may be charged with murder if an autopsy determines the fatal blood clot was caused by the attack a month earlier, officials said.
Victim Tobias Savice had gone to the Garment District to get his pants altered and was waiting in a hall to enter his tailor on W. 38 St. near Eighth Ave. around 1:15 p.m. Jan. 6 when the muggers struck, cops said.
When Savice stepped off the elevator, he was jumped and shot by the pair of crooks, who snatched the pricy Rolex off this wrist and ran off with it.
Part of the robbery was caught on elevator surveillance camera, building employees said.
“(Savice) is holding a suit or something, in a protective covering,” said a worker who asked not to be named who saw the startling surveillance video. “They get out of the elevator (and) some other guy with a gun jumped him and they start fighting.”
Panicked workers tried to staunch the bloody wound with swatches of fabric.
Medics rushed Savice to Bellevue Hospital in stable condition and he was hospitalized for about a week, friends and family said.
“He sounded normal, good spirits, all of that,” said a friend who spoke to Savice about 10 days before he died. “He sounded good, he felt good. He was released (and) he was home resting up, getting ready to do his PT.”
Savice developed a blood clot and died Sunday, nearly a month after the shooting.
Other workers in the building recalled hearing the shots — and seeing all the blood.
“I’m here and ‘Bang!’ I’m scared,” a 58-year-old building worker recalled Wednesday. “I opened the door and the (floor) was full of blood.”
Savice was clearly in pain but wasn’t crying, the worker recalled.
“He said ‘Somebody shot me! Call police, call police!'” he said. “I got some fabric and gave it to him. I was scared.”
Family continued mourned the “lovable, happy” man on Wednesday.
“He was the closest person to me,” his younger brother Na-Me told the Daily News. “I feel like he’s still here with me. I’m only 22, I got 2,200 years of memories with him.”
Savice was an amateur rapper and inspired a close friend to take up the hobby.
“He didn’t write anything, he freestyled everything,” said the friend, who did not want to be named. “There was never a pen and paper in front of him. Everything he did, he did in his own head.”
The man recalled Savice giving someone the shoes off his feet.
“He was amazing,” said the 36-year-old friend. “There’s no reason why he’s not here right now. I never knew anybody to say a bad word about him.”
Savice wrote music for up-and-coming artists.
‘He was a good-spirited person,” said his older brother. “He cared about everybody. He touched a lot of people’s lives.”
By the time the victim died, one suspect had already been charged with robbery and assault. Richard Johnson, 34, was arrested Jan. 27.
A second suspect, Jarel Moore, 38, was arrested Monday on the same charges.
Moore was due to be arraigned in Manhattan Criminal Court on Wednesday night while Johnson is being held on $100,000 bail, records show.
“He’s still not here because of them so it doesn’t change anything,” Savice’s friend said of the arrests. It doesn’t change anything. I don’t care what sentence they get, I don’t care if they get jail. It don’t change anything.”
Police said murder charges could be added if the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner classifies the death a homicide. The initial autopsy was inconclusive and more tests are being conducted, a spokeswoman for the city medical examiner said.
The worker who watched the surveillance footage said Savice was conscious and alert after being shot.
“The victim was talking on the phone when cops came and paramedics came,” the worker said. “Now you’re saying that he died? He looked like he was going to be OK. I just don’t believe people die from a shot in the leg. It just seems weird.”
Both suspects have done time in prison.
Johnson has multiple prior arrests and was paroled in December 2016 after serving more than three years in state prison for an upstate drug conviction, records show. Before that he served more than three years for a Manhattan robbery and was paroled in July 2013.
Moore has about a dozen prior arrests, police said. He was conditionally released by parole in January 2023 after serving six years for drug dealing in Manhattan, records show. Before that, he was paroled in November 2009 following a Brooklyn robbery and assault conviction for which he was sentenced to three-and-a-half years.
It was the first time in recent memory violence occurred in the Garment District building.
“This building is good,” said the employee, who has been working in the building for five years. “This is the first time.”
