Tuesday, December 18, 2007

The Ninja Hunt

New York -- The Staten Island "ninja burglar", who is now thought to have robbed eighteen homes on the island in the past seven months, acquired his honorific in September, when he encountered a Dongan Hills resident named Phil Chiolo while raiding Chiolo's home.

He was dressed all in black, with a black face mask, Chiolo said, and he carried nun-chucks, which he used to club Chiolo in the chest, head, and shins before Chiolo was able to retaliate by stabbing at him with a steak knife.

Chiolo, who suffered a welt near his collarbone, said the other day that he is fine, but Staten Island has since gone ninja mad, with the burglar enjoying a kind of romantic outlaw notoriety. Other victims have likened him to a gazelle or a cat ("very athletic, very quiet, and very fast"), capable of scaling walls and leaping noiselessly out windows. (No one has heard him speak.)

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