Bank Robbery of the Week

Stolen from Shutterbug
A local professional photographer was dismayed to discover last week that someone had broken into his car and stolen a large black bag filled with expensive camera equipment. The front window had been smashed in, and the unknown perp absconded with $22,000 worth of photography loot.

Very Open House
A couple was packing up their West End Avenue apartment to move when the wife noticed that her diamond stud earrings were missing. She told police that they had been in a jewelry box in a bedroom closet when they were holding regular open houses from February to April, and she hadn’t checked on them since. The sparkly pair was worth $17,800.

Short-Changed Mugger
A 15-year-old was walking down West 78th Street last week when an older teenager approached him from behind and said, “You have five seconds to empty your pockets.” He then stepped in front of the victim to prevent him from fleeing and shoved his hand into the boy’s front pocket to dig for valuables. He came up with a whopping $3 in cash and took off.

A Friendly Robbery
Last Saturday night, a 62-year-old Upper West Side resident was enjoying herself at a local pub, catching the basketball game and tossing back a few. She left to grab some Chinese food and was walking down West 84th Street when a man approached and struck up what she remembers as a “friendly conversation,” until it turned violent. The man suddenly hit the poor woman, who, being intoxicated, fell to the ground and injured her left elbow and knee. The perp snatched $200 in cash from his victim and fled.

Motorcycle Getaway
Last Friday around 2:30 p.m., a witness watched as a couple of beefy guys pulled off a high-end motorcycle heist on Central Park West. The thieves pulled up in a green Plymouth Voyager van with Virginia plates, lifted a Suzuki motorbike into the back and drove off. The 2009 model moped is worth $10,000. Police are still analyzing security camera footage of the theft.

Date Night Gets Ugly
After finding himself the victim of a nasty blackmail scheme, a local 51-year-old man finally brought the police into a sordid situation. The man told cops that he had been trawling the “women seeking men” section of Craigslist recently, looking for a date for the night. He corresponded with one woman over email, then on the phone, and arranged for her to come to his apartment. After speaking to her again, however, the man said he grew uneasy with her demeanor and cancelled the date, feigning illness. She phoned back and asked to meet, which he declined, then it took a turn toward extortion.
An unknown gentleman called the victim demanding he pay $40 for the woman’s cab fare. The demand soon escalated to $440, and the perp told him to get cash from the ATM, put it in an envelope marked “Chris” and give it to his doorman for pick up. After the victim agreed and followed through, the perp shook him down twice more for a total of $940 by threatening to break down his door and kill him if he didn’t cooperate. The victim put a stop to it by calling the police.

The Worst of Crimes
A group of Upper West Side neighbors received a rude—and hot—awakening when they discovered their air conditioners had been stolen. Last Thursday, the manager of a building on West 71st Street reported to police that eight AC units, worth a total of $8,000, were discovered missing from the building’s storage area when residents went to install them in preparation for our current heat wave. Employees of the building all had access to the area, which was shut only by a shoddy door and single lock.

A Time to Steal
After returning from a trip to San Francisco a few months ago, a 60-year-old disabled woman learned she had been robbed when the boyfriend of the alleged perpetrator told her what he knew. According to the police report, the victim had given a set of keys to her apartment to her neighbor when she went away. That neighbor was the boyfriend of the alleged thief, and told the victim that his girlfriend confessed to stealing a $2,000 antique brass clock and two flat-screen televisions worth $1,650 from the woman’s apartment. It’s unclear if the boyfriend was involved or simply duped into providing access to the crime scene.

Missing Motorcar
An Upper West Side resident parked her new car on West 85th Street last Sunday. When she returned a short time later, the car was gone without a trace—police found nothing on a canvass of the area, there were no security cameras trained on the spot and no broken glass was found near where the car had been parked. The missing vehicle is a 2012 silver Mercedes E350, worth a cool $64,000.

Subway Snatcher
While waiting for the southbound 3 train at the 135th Street station last Monday, an 18-year-old approached another man and asked him if his cell phone contract was with AT&T. The feigned interest was actually preparation for a grab. Both parties boarded the train, and when the doors opened at the West 72nd Street station, the perp grabbed the iPhone and ran. The victim chased him through the station and alerted a nearby police officer, who cornered the perp and was able to arrest him after a bout of dodging and arm flailing. The phone was recovered.

Thwarted Bank Robbery

Police arrested a man suspected of multiple bank robberies last Friday after an unsuccessful attempt at another holdup. The 42-year-old white man approached a teller at an Apple Bank branch on Broadway with a note demanding cash. Defying the normal practice of obeying the demands to avoid conflict or injury, the teller refused and hit the alarm. The perp immediately fled on foot and was apprehended by a bank employee and a police officer on the street.

Phantom Furniture
An employee at the furniture store  was fired and reported to police for using a little too much imagination on the job. The 21-year-old worker processed fraudulent returns for inventory that never existed, then allegedly sold the store credit to friends to purchase more furniture at the store. The total stolen credit was for $3,449.17.

Hot Spot Targeted
The owner of a popular Upper West Side restaurant learned last week that his business had been the victim of fraud. The man’s bank contacted him to inform him that two fraudulent checks had been drawn on his business checking account and deposited into a different account at another bank. The two checks were for $3,189.76 each; the victim had no idea who might have access to his account information.

Phone Thefts Abound
Criminals are still on the lookout for iPhones and other expensive smart phones, and the victims are often young teens walking home from school. One recent theft in the neighborhood occurred when a man approached a woman and asked for the time; when she checked her iPhone and put it back in her purse, the perp grabbed it from her bag and ran away. Other incidents involve two perpetrators approaching young kids and intimidating them into giving up their phones.

Pricey Instruments Taken
A 24-year-old musician was dining late at night with her friend at a bar on the Upper West Side last Friday night. She placed her French horn in its case at her feet, and she and her companion left the bar briefly before she remembered the instrument. By the time she returned five minutes later, the $8,000 horn was gone, and the bartender said he had seen a man come in and leave with the bag.
The same day at the Juilliard School, a 19-year-old student was practicing violin in one of the practice rooms. She left the instrument in the room to pack up her things, and when she got it back to her dorm room and opened the case, the double-bass bow, worth $1,700, was missing.

Silent Hold-Up
A man walked into the Apple Bank on Broadway last Friday during the day and conducted a robbery without saying a word. He held up a handwritten note to the plexiglass of the teller window that read “I have a gun, no dye pack, no bait, $50 bills and $100 bills, this is a robbery.” The teller forked over $1,700 in cash as instructed, which the perp placed into a black nylon bag. The robber is described as a white 30-year-old man with grey hair.