Crime Watch
CRIME ALERT FROM THE 19TH PRECINCT:
WARNING TO NEIGHBORHOOD SHOP AND RESTAURANT OWNERS! Once again police have been seeing a pattern of robbery in which security gates are jimmied, cash registers are broken open, and cash stolen. Shopkeepers are urged to follow these precautions: 1) Do NOT leave cash in the register when you close shop at night. 2) Leave the cash register UNLOCKED so a robber can open it without breaking it. 3) Make sure to lock the store's front door. 4) Lock the security gate on BOTH left and right sides. The thief responsible may be the "Beanie Bandit" seen on surveillance video wearing such a hat.
Most Inconvenient
Two men held up a convenience store and its customer at gunpoint. At 9:45 PM on Wednesday, September 18, two men entered a convenience store on East 80th Street. The first man approached the 29-year-old man working behind the counter, showed a silver handgun, and demanded money. The second robber entered the store wearing a ski mask and took money from a customer. Video surveillance at nearby locations may have photographed the robbers. Police searched the area but were unable to find the pair, who fled the scene in a car. The total haul amounted to $2,300.
Bad ID
A woman became a victim of identity theft. At 5:10 PM on Wednesday, September 18, a woman living on East 81st Street reported to police that back in February, she received a JC Penney credit card in the mail, along with a statement recording a $900 charge to the account in the Bronx. She called her credit reporting agency to bring this incident to their attention and destroyed both the statement and the card. Recently she received a letter from a children's clothing store denying her application for a credit card. Then last week she went to get money from her bank account, when she was told that an unknown person had tried to deposit a fraudulent check to her account in Washington Heights on August 30 using her canceled debit card, which had been stolen on December 17 of last year.
Jealous Much?
A man was assaulted by a woman's jealous boyfriend. At 2:12 AM on Wednesday, September 18, a 25-year-old man was leaving a bar at the northeast corner of Lexington Avenue and East 60th Street, when a man in a white T-shirt punched him, causing a cut to his right forehead. The assailant then fled into the subway. The fight started because the perpetrator thought the victim had been coming onto his girlfriend in the bar. No cameras caught the incident.
Return of the Gatecrasher
A restaurant on First Avenue was broken into. Sometime after 10:30 PM on Monday, September 16 and before 10:45 the following morning, unknown perpetrators pried the bottom of the security gate outside a restaurant on First Avenue and entered the premises through the front door. They then smashed open the cash register and removed $184. There were no surveillance cameras or witnesses.
The Beanie Bandit
A man appeared on a surveillance video breaking into a restaurant cash register. At 1:30 AM on Sunday, September 15, the security camera inside a restaurant on Madison Avenue captured the sight of a man wearing gloves and a beanie cap entering the premises, breaking into the register, and making off with approximately $700. He had bent the security gate outside and pulled it off his track before entering, breaking open the register, and throwing it to the floor.