PURSE SNATCHER
An unidentified man attacked a 51-year-old woman as she was walking along East 80th Street on Monday and seized her purse. According to the victim, an East 85th Street resident, the man approached her around 11 p.m. and demanded money. He then threw her against a pole and onto the ground as he grabbed her purse, but only took a pack of cigarettes from a small bag within the purse. The thief fled toward Fifth Avenue, and remains at large.

SHOPLIFT FEVER
One shoplifter did not know when to quit on Monday. Workers at a pharmacy on Second Avenue first confronted him outside their store around 4 p.m. after he swiped goods from their store. He argued with the workers, then fled toward East 63rd Street. A witness told the workers that the shoplifter left a shopping bag in a newspaper box on 63rd Street, so the workers went to investigate, and were confronted by the shoplifter, who told them, “That’s my stuff.” The group got into another dispute, then the thief suddenly grabbed a gold chain off the neck of one of the store workers, a 59-year-old Bronx resident, and fled toward Third Avenue. The workers chased the perp and found the chain discarded on the sidewalk. The thief has not been caught.

BODEGA BRAWL
Two men got into a fight in a Second Avenue bodega on Saturday. A 37-year-old was talking with friends around the grocery store’s entrance before the altercation at about 12:45 a.m., and then was attacked by a 27-year-old, who punched him in the face multiple times. What caused the fight was not reported, but the attacker was arrested for assault shortly after the incident.

PHONE SWIPE
A young woman riding the M86 bus was busy with her iPhone around 10 p.m. on Monday when the device was suddenly snatched from her hand. Startled, she looked up and saw a teenage boy’s back as he ran off the bus at a stop. The victim, a 26-year-old who lives on East 88th Street, stored her driver’s license and credit cards in the phone’s case. Police were able to arrest the thief, a 15-year-old, later in the day.

MEAN CUSTOMER
A rowdy patron crossed the line last week when he punched a bar worker in the face. Prior to the attack, the worker, 56, asked the 18-year-old patron and his friends to leave the Third Avenue bar around 1:30 a.m. last Thursday, Nov. 22. The patron was apparently unhappy with this request, and lashed out at the worker, causing a laceration over the worker’s right eye. The worker reported the attack to police, and the patron was arrested for assault.

Crime Really Doesn’t Pay
Three teenage boys were walking home from school from school last week when three other boys approached them and demanded their money and wallets. When the trio of would-be victims refused and kept walking down Broadway, the thieving threesome followed and managed to grab $2 from one of the boys. Now all three are wanted for robbery, with less than a buck each to show for their misdeeds.

Courtesy of Buzz Bishop

Old Spice Crook
A man was arrested at a local Duane Reade last week after attempting to abscond with a whopping 299 sticks of Old Spice deodorant. (Does anybody sweat that much?) The presumably odoriferous shoplifter also injured an employee who tried to stop him from leaving the store.

Depraved Assault on a Child
Police were alerted last week to the plight of an 8-year-old girl living in the Amsterdam Houses with suspicious injuries on her left hand. When they investigated, officers determined that the girl’s mother had allegedly burned her hand with a fork as punishment for “taking her sister’s tampons.” The mother told cops that her daughter burned herself accidentally while ironing clothes, but her story didn’t jive with the poor girl’s injury and she was arrested on felonious assault charges. The case has been referred to the Special Victims Unit.

Mucous-Free Shoplifter
Last Tuesday at 9:45 a.m., an unknown man waltzed into a local CVS pharmacy and sauntered out with 40 stolen packs of Mucinex, an over-the-counter med meant to combat mucous and coughs. The total haul is worth $1,150, so the thief most likely intends either to get some crystal-clear nasal passages or make a hefty profit reselling the drug on the street.

Bad Boyfriend
A 37-year-old woman called the police after her live-in boyfriend took his alcoholic rage out on her. The woman reported that her drunken mate got angry and attempted to strangle her, then slammed her against a wall and held her there so she couldn’t escape his grasp. He eventually let go and ran off, allowing the victim a chance to call for help.

False Phone Friends
When checking her most recent cell phone bill, a local woman noticed a few extraneous charges—namely that two iPhones had been purchased with her account and a stranger had been added as an “authorized user,” enabling him to change her plan to accommodate the two new phone lines.

Don’t Tempt Thieves
Most criminals can’t resist an easy target, as a local man discovered last week when he placed his wallet on the inside window ledge of his ground-floor apartment on West 78th Street. An unknown person spotted it, and snagged the wallet, attempting four credit card purchases with the stolen loot.