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A Bronx UPS driver received a moving tribute Wednesday after helping police capture the suspect accused of stabbing two men in separate Upper West Side attacks in July. The suspect allegedly shouted “Allahu Akbar” during the assaults, and the delivery worker later came face-to-face with him.
George Zamot, a longtime UPS employee, was making a delivery on July 23 when he saw Raul Morales, 51, attack Moshe Grunhaus, a 50-year-old Jewish man wearing a kippah. Prosecutors say Morales drove a screwdriver into Grunhaus’ chest after the victim left a synagogue near Amsterdam Avenue and West 86th Street.
Minutes earlier, authorities say, Morales had stabbed a 57-year-old Asian man in the back near West 84th Street and Central Park West.
“I looked and Moshe Grunhaus was grabbing on his chest,” Zamot, 49, told The Post in an exclusive interview.
“And he had asked someone to call 911 because ‘the gentleman in the black hoodie had just stabbed me.’”
The South Bronx native said he reacted “instinctively,” following Morales after Grunhaus appeared to look to him for help.
After Morales ran from the scene, Zamot kept him in sight from a distance for approximately “two to three blocks,” he said.
“I didn’t know what he was going to do at this point,” Zamot recalled. “I just knew he couldn’t do that again. I was ready to do whatever I had to do.”
Morales eventually entered a NYCHA apartment building, where he would later barricade himself. Zamot encountered him in the elevator, and the suspect reportedly behaved as though nothing had occurred.
“After one individual got off on the third floor, he [Morales] got off on the eleventh. And as he leaves, he looks at me and he says, ‘Have a great day,’” Zamot said. He could only “look at him in total amazement.”
Zamot managed to remember Morales’ apartment number and quickly notified the NYPD. Following a standoff that lasted nearly an hour, officers removed Morales from the apartment and took him into custody.
Prosecutors say investigators later uncovered evidence indicating that Morales held antisemitic views.
Despite his actions, the father of three said he has kept a low profile and has not viewed himself as a hero.
“My mother only found out today,” Zamot said Wednesday before speaking at the UJA-Federation of New York’s Rally to Stop Anti-Semitism in Midtown Manhattan.
Asked why he took such risks to help stop Morales, Zamot explained: “One way or the other, he wasn’t gonna be able to do this to anybody else’s child. Because that’s how I see it.”
He said he was also thinking about Grunhaus’ mother, whom he later learned is alive and lives in Israel.
“There’s no way I was gonna let another mom just lose their child and live in agony for the rest of their lives,” Zamot said.
Speaking at the rally, the Good Samaritan encouraged New Yorkers to “be the thing that hate crimes cannot operate around.”
Grunhaus later offered heartfelt thanks to the UPS driver, calling Zamot “my hero in brown uniform.”
“New York City is a safer place because of you. New York City is a better place because of you,” Grunhaus said in a prerecorded message to a visibly emotional Zamot.
“The world is a better place because of you.”
