Being a delivery person in New York has got to be full of unpleasant surprises — but usually they’re probably relegated to harmless annoyances, like getting your bike seat stolen or having a naked Upper East Side matron greet you at the door. But for 19-year-old Burkina Faso native Assami Semde, a recent routine delivery got extremely dangerous extremely fast: Two gun-toting thugs accosted him on 123rd Street while he was dropping off a couple of pies from Famous Famiglia. One put a gun to his head and ordered him to turn over the pizza. “I thought it was a strange game,” Semde said. He put the pizzas on the ground, and then calmly began kicking ass.
When the gunman bent down to get the pizza, Semde “punched him and pushed him against the elevator.” When the other thug tried to fight him, Semde got the best of him, too. Eventually one guy escaped, but Semde held the other until cops came and arrested him. Then he continued on and delivered his pies, still hot. Later, considering the differences between Burkina Faso and the United States, he realized that even though the West African country is incredibly poor, compared to the U.S., it’s “better emotionally.”
