NYPress.com - New York's essential guide to culture, arts, politics, news and more » robbing http://nypress.com New York's essential guide to culture, arts, politics, news and more Thu, 20 Jun 2013 00:53:57 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 Crime Watch http://nypress.com/crime-watch-66/ http://nypress.com/crime-watch-66/#comments Thu, 08 Nov 2012 21:48:19 +0000 Paul Bisceglio http://nypress.com/?p=58531 PART HIT MAN, PART SPAMBOT 

A 50-year-old West End Avenue resident reported to police last Thursday that he received repeated e-mails from an unknown man threatening to kill him. In the messages, the perp explained that someone had offered him $2,000 (half given in advance) to execute the Upper West Sider, and that the resident could only subvert his pending demise by paying the perp $1,000. Concerned for his safety, the resident reported the threats to the FBI, who told him to go to local authorities. Police filed the case as attempted grand larceny.

CELLPHONE SWIPE

An unknown man stole an iPhone from an unsuspecting woman late last Thursday night at the corner of Amsterdam Avenue and West 80th Street. The thief snuck up behind the 28-year-old woman at the intersection, smacked her on the side of her head, then snatched her phone while she was stunned. The woman was unable to retrieve the phone’s serial number from her wireless provider for tracking purposes, but police nevertheless reportedly recovered video of the man, a 6-foot-tall Caucasian in his mid-30s, attempting to sell the phone at a hostel on Amsterdam Avenue. The suspect is still at large.

BACKDOOR ROBBERY

An unidentified burglar stole money and electronics from a clothing store on Columbus Avenue last Friday by sneaking in through a basement back door. The thief managed to access to the basement’s storeroom from an outside alley, then charged upstairs into the store when a young female employee opened the usually locked door to go downstairs. He locked the employee in the basement, then headed to the store’s office, where he grabbed a safe, two iPhones and an iPad with a combined worth around $2,000. No security cameras were in place to pick up the thief’s details, and he made a clean escape.

KNIFE-WIELDING CROOK

On Wednesday last week, an unidentified man burst into a chain store on Broadway between West 81st and 82nd streets and demanded the cash drawer. “Give me the money,” he said, and withdrew a knife as two employees ran away. The robber snatched the bottom part of the register, which held an unknown amount of cash, then rushed out of the store. Video surveillance showed that he was Caucasian in his mid-40s, wearing glasses, jeans, a waist length jacket and brown dress shoes.

HURRICANE HEIST

In the middle of a hurricane, probably the absolute last thing you want to worry about is someone breaking in and stealing your stuff. But that’s exactly what some rude New Yorker did to a local newsstand vendor, who returned to his kiosk on Broadway after the storm on Tuesday to find a broken lock on his front gate and thousands of dollars of merchandise missing. Gone were lottery tickets, phone cards and cigarette cartons along with $2,000 cash, together setting the salesman back over $10,000.

KEY BETRAYAL

The owner of a commercial building on Columbus Avenue got a sad surprise when he watched the surveillance video of a burglar robbing his store from the front door. In the early hours of Friday, Nov. 2, an unidentified man approached the store and used keys to unlock the main entrance and an interior security gate. Once inside, the perp put on rubber gloves and pried open the cash register with an unidentified sharp object. He then fled the scene, leaving the sharp object behind. He wore a brown hoodie that obstructed the camera’s view of his face.

]]> http://nypress.com/crime-watch-66/feed/ 0 Crime Watch http://nypress.com/crime-watch-14/ http://nypress.com/crime-watch-14/#comments Thu, 26 Apr 2012 01:48:36 +0000 NYPress http://nypress.com/?p=44985 Hydrant Caps May Need to Have a Lock and Key

While 4/20 is a day that commemorates many events, some good and some bad, it will now stand out in the mind of a Upper East Side business owner as the day his store was almost robbed. At 7 p.m. on Friday, after an employee had closed up the jewelry shop on Madison Avenue, an eyewitness walked past the shop and noticed that the door had been cracked but not shattered and a fire hydrant cap lay nearby. Police state that the cap was taken from a hydrant on East 75th Street. After the botched attempt to gain entry, the unknown perp fled the scene. No footage of the burglar was caught on tape.

 

Third Time is the Charm

While no connections have been made as of yet, two more attempts at burglaries were carried out in very close succession. One yielded nothing but a broken window for a department store on Madison, but one unlucky jewelry storeowner will have to fix much more than a broken front door. If it was the same crook, he or she had their second strike of the weekend at a department store at 2:45 a.m., where another fire hydrant cap was used to create a makeshift entrance. Again, resilient windows and an eyewitness who heard a loud crash foiled the plan. After booking it, the thief, now with two strikes under their belt, pitched a home run when yet another fire hydrant cap took out the door to an upscale jewelry store on Madison Avenue. The crook entered the premises and emptied one of the cabinets, which held 50 or 60 Lanciani watches valued at about $510,000. In both instances, nobody laid eyes on the burglar, who is still at large.

 

Robbing the Youth

In an age where children grow up side-by-side with emerging technologies, it is unfortunate that they become targets for scum who are looking to make a big cash-out by robbing young kids. On Friday, April 20, at 4:30 p.m., two young teens were walking home from school on East 84th Street between First and Second avenues when two men approached the victims from behind, grabbing one of them and threatening them with a gun. Although the filth never brandished said weapon, they demanded, “Give me everything you’ve got or I will kill you.” The kids emptied their pockets of their wallets, IDs and respective Apple products. Neither of the young boys were hurt, but the spineless crooks made a successful getaway. No arrests have been made so far.

 

No Class Among Thieves

Not too far away from the aforementioned robbery, at 4:15 p.m. on Friday, another teenager was victim of a stick-up by two individuals. The high school student was walking on East 85th Street when he was approached from behind and grabbed across the face. One of the men told him to empty his pockets or they would shoot him. Again, no gun was produced, but the child smartly complied, handing over his iPhone, MetroCard and wallet.

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