Crime Watch

Compiled by Adel Manoukian Van in a Seemingly Secure Location Gets Robbed Surprisingly, some crimes can happen in the blink of an eye. A 2009 white Ford van was stationed at its usual parking spot on the third floor of a garage on Greenwich Street, a fact verified by the garage's security guard, who clearly saw the car on security cameras. The guard stepped out of the surveillance room for 10 minutes and when he returned he noticed that the front passenger side window of the car was smashed. Several items were stolen including two Motorola two-way radios worth $100, an $85 Hewlett-Packard calculator and a flash drive worth $25. Friendly Neighbor Turns Violent On the evening of Saturday, Aug. 18, a Soho local was involved in a verbal dispute with a peddler on Canal Street. It got heated, and the peddler hit the young man over the side of the head with a glass bottle, cutting the victim. Witnesses told police the man is known in the neighborhood, as many of them see him almost every day and even know him by name. Following this incident, though, the man hasn't been spotted in Soho. Yet Another Train Theft Thefts on trains continue, so be warned or you may end up like this unlucky fellow. A 27-year-old man fell asleep on the 4 line last Friday, leaving his laptop unattended on the seat next to him. As the train jolted to a halt at Fulton Street, the man awoke and found that his $3,000 MacBook was gone. Locker Room Larcenies You may think securing your possessions with a combination lock means they won't get stolen, but sometimes, this is not the case. A 43-year-old man was working out early in the morning at a fitness facility on Wall Street when, after an hour, he returned to the locker room to retrieve his items, only to find the lock he secured his items with was busted open and everything inside the locker was gone. His $150 messenger bag carried a $200 tie and credit cards. On the same day, a similar incident occurred in a sports club on Water Street. A 45-year-old man had his $360 Android cellphone and credit cards stolen despite securing them with a lock in a locker. End of Summer Tips from the NYPD With Labor Day coming up, the NYPD released a few surprising drinking and driving stats for this holiday weekend. According to police, in the last five years over 900 people have been killed nationwide in drunken-driving accidents on Labor Day weekend. The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration also noted that between midnight and 3 a.m., drunk driving claims a life every 23 minutes. Roughly 17.2 million drivers have reportedly driven one or more times in the last year when they felt they were over the legal limit. NYPD was careful to note that if caught drinking and driving, New Yorkers will have their car impounded for forfeiture. For more crime prevention tips, visit www.nypdcommunityaffairs.org.