Crime Watch

A Loaded Request A 25-year-old man was sitting on a bench outside the Trump Tower facing Broadway around 7 p.m. last Tuesday when a young man, about 16 years old, came and sat next to him. The boy then turned to the unsuspecting victim and said, "If you don't give me your phone, I will shoot you. I have a gun here." The perp didn't flash his supposed firearm, but the victim didn't take any chances and forked over his $400 iPhone as well as $20 in cash. The teenage robber who got away on foot down West 60th Street, is described as Asian, about 115 pounds, wearing his black hair in an Afro style. Quick-Change Robbery Resting on a park bench is normally a stress-free activity, but a 36-year-old Upper West Side resident felt otherwise last Monday night. She was sitting on a bench outside Central Park, near West 61st Street, when a young man grabbed her purse and fled west. A witness saw the suspect dash into a parking garage on West 65th Street, switch to a different shirt, ditch the bag and keep the contents before running out of sight. The victim cancelled her credit cards and didn't lose anything of value. Sticky Pretty Fingers Last Tuesday at around 12:45 a.m., an employee at a Duane Reade on Amsterdam Avenue watched as a very specific robbery unfolded. A woman, described as black, 130 pounds, 5-foot-4 with a short ponytail, walked over to the cosmetics aisle carrying a brown purse. She then loaded her bag with 261 bottles of O.P.I. brand nail polish worth a total of $2,218. After she cleaned out the shelf, she sauntered past the cash registers and right out the door. Picture Perfect Crime A local man was dismayed to find that his apartment had been burglarized in the hour-and-15-minute window he was gone last Thursday. The victim left his home on West 64th Street at 10:30 a.m. and came back at 11:45 a.m. to a kicked-in window fan. The unknown burglar stole $6,150 worth of camera and computer equipment, including a $2,000 Canon camera, a $1,700 lens, a $1,250 iMac and flashes, filters and memory cards. Gang-Up on the Train A bumbling group of 15-year-olds were arrested for grand larceny last Thursday afternoon when they were caught stealing an iPhone from a woman on the C train. The 30-year-old victim was sitting on the uptown train at about 2 p.m. and the five kids, four boys and one girl, were standing near her. When the train pulled into the 72nd Street station, one of the boys snatched the woman's phone and they all fled. The victim identified them all when police found them a short time later, and the phone was recovered from the girl's purse. She said that one of the boys had grabbed it, but the whole group was arrested. Shady Withdrawals An employee at a Chase bank branch thwarted a fraudster from stealing from her elderly victim for a second time in one day. The swindler had possession of her 84-year-old target's social security number and had forged an ID, entering an uptown branch of Chase and withdrawing $3,500 from the woman's checking account. But when she went to another nearby branch to try and withdraw $4,000 from the woman's savings account, the bank teller grew suspicious and denied the request. The bank then informed their customer that she had been robbed and closed down both accounts to prevent it from happening again. Police are still searching for the thief.