BAD PLACE TO NAP
A man at work on his laptop in a coffee shop on Broadway let his guard down for a moment and was robbed. At around 10 a.m. on Sunday, Dec. 23, the 64-year-old New Jersey resident decided to take a 10-minute power nap in the shop with his laptop on the table in front of him. When he woke up, the laptop—an Apple computer worth $1,350—was gone. No one in the shop claimed to have witnessed the theft, and the thief remains at large.

UNHAPPY HOLIDAY
A 43-year-old West 62nd Street resident is wanted for assault after he threw a glass cup at his wife on Christmas. The couple got into an argument in their apartment around 11 p.m. The husband’s anger turned violent when he took a glass and hurled it at the back of the wife’s head, cutting her and causing her to go to the hospital. The husband fled the apartment and has not been tracked down by police. The wife, 46, was not seriously injured, and reportedly has been uncooperative with law enforcement.

THE GRINCH WHO STOLE CAMERAS AND AN iPAD
A private school on Riverside Boulevard was robbed over its holiday break. According to an employee of the school, the last worker in the building before the break left at 9 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 23. When the employee returned to the schoolmi on the following Wednesday, she noticed that cameras were missing from two rooms, and that an iPad was missing from the school’s main office. Police found no signs of forced entry—broken locks, shattered windows, etc.—and note that the robber(s) could have had a key to get into the school’s rear entrance. Video surveillance may have recorded the theft.

FAILED CHRISTMAS ROBBERY
A young couple attempted to rob a 42-year-old woman on the street on Tuesday, Dec. 25. The pair, believed to be in their twenties, approached the woman on West 74th Street at 6:30 p.m., and the female perp jumped forward and began striking the woman on the top of her head and face. The woman asked the pair what they wanted, and the male perp demanded her phone. Instead of complying, however, the woman managed to escape the robbers and ran toward Amsterdam Avenue yelling for help. The pair fled defeated, but have yet to be identified or apprehended.

SUCCESSFUL CHRISTMAS ROBBERY
A man was robbed on Columbus Avenue on Tuesday, Dec. 25. The 39-year-old Upper West Side resident noticed two men following him as he was walking up the street at 1:30 a.m. They came up from behind, put him in a choke hold and threw him to the ground. Though he resisted, they wrestled his $150 HP Touchpad from him, then took off running on West 76th Street. The two thieves are wanted for robbery.

WHEN ROOMMATES ATTACK
A stabbing recently occurred on West 73rd Street. At 7 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 22, the 60-year-old perp followed a 59-year-old acquaintance of his after he was dropped off on the street by a shelter-run bus service. The perp approached the man and stabbed him twice in the arm and once in the side, then lodged the knife in the man’s shoulder. The perp then fled the scene, and the victim was taken to the hospital. Details were not given about the nature of the dispute between the two men, though the police report confirms that they lived together on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn.

Last Sunday, in the early morning, a 48-year-old woman from New Jersey was walking along West End Avenue when a young man approached her from behind, grabbed her and ripped her purse from her shoulder. The perp took off running, but a doorman at a nearby building saw the entire incident and chased him and another teenager who joined him in running. The doorman was able to chase the two thieves, who were 18 and 16 years old, into his building’s courtyard, where they dropped the purse before being apprehended by police and arrested. The woman’s purse, which contained $75 in cash and several credit cards, was returned to her, thanks to the valiant doorman looking out for his neighborhood.

Senior Swindle

As financial crimes and scams are on the rise, checking one’s bank statements often has become more of a necessity than ever before. A 74-year-old Upper West Side resident learned that the hard way when he received a statement from Chase Bank informing him of several suspicious withdrawals. An unknown person had taken a total of $21,896 from the man’s checking and savings accounts in three separate incidents and had apparently used the money to pay Sears and Capitol One credit card bills taken out in the victim’s name, unbeknownst to him.

Cleaning Up Jewelry

A local woman reported to police that she suspected two men whom she had hired to clean her carpets had also absconded with some pricey jewelry. The woman said that the two men from a local carpet cleaning service had come to her home on West 81st Street last Tuesday, and on Wednesday, she discovered she was missing two items that had been in a jewelry box in her bedroom, where one of the men had been working. The victim had an appraisal report for her diamond tennis bracelet, valuing it at $8,387, and a store receipt for her gold crystal necklace, showing she had paid $9,587 for it. Police have not made any arrests yet.

Roomies Scammed

Two people living at the same West End Avenue address filed separate police reports last week to report that they had both been ripped off. Each told police that an unknown person had stolen, forged and cashed two checks from their respective accounts. The man reported that two consecutive checks from his Citibank account for $2,760 and $3,200 were written and cashed at an unknown location without his knowledge. The woman reported that two consecutive checks for $2,600 and $3,225 from her Chase account met the same fate. Police reports did not specify any suspects or say whether the police are looking for one person.

Persistence Doesn’t Pay

Last Friday, a 14-year-old boy was walking from a bus stop toward West 81st Street when two unknown men approached him and asked him for the time. When the boy responded, the men asked to see his phone, and the boy responded that he didn’t have one and kept walking. The men followed him, putting their arms around him in a not-too-friendly way and quietly informing their target that one of them had a gun and another had a knife. When they again demanded the boy’s phone as well as his wallet, the victim was forced to empty his pockets to prove that he did not, in fact, have either and that they had picked the wrong person to rob. The perps finally got the message and left the boy alone.