Apple picking

Crooks are still hungry for Apple, stealing at least 10 Macintosh products this week in five separate incidents. Here are the shocking details:

• Three hoodlums robbed a 19-year-old straphanger of his iPod as the G train arrived at the Broadway station — at Union Avenue — at around 10 pm on Aug. 5.

• A burglar broke into a Graham Avenue apartment at around 9 pm on Aug. 6 and escaped with two laptop computers.

• A crook broke into a Marcy Avenue apartment overnight on Aug. 8 and stole two MacBook laptops, an iPod Nano and Apple earphones. The thief broke into the unit, between South Third Street and Borinquen Place, between 8 pm and 3:40 am.

• Thieves broke into a Seigel Street apartment, between White and Bogart streets, on Aug. 9 and escaped with three laptops and two iPods.

The crooks forced their way into the apartment between 4:30 am and 1 pm.

• Burglars climbed into a Boerum Street apartment through a rear window on Aug. 9 and stole an iPod, a Dell laptop, and a Sony television.

The crooks struck between 8:30 pm and 10:30 pm, escaping from the apartment, which is between Manhattan and Graham avenues.

Brutal stabbing

A vicious gang of knife-wielding brutes attacked a 22-year-old man as he walked home from the bar on Aug. 10.

The victim told cops that the quartet of hoods cornered him at Havemeyer and Grand streets just after midnight.

“You mad pussy,” one of the perps taunted before punching the victim in the face.

The hoodlums delivered a ferocious thrashing, then fled.

Only after the attack did the victim realize he had also been sliced across the hand and stabbed three times in his stomach.

Copper criminals

The borough’s most-popular crime is back: Crooks made off with a heap of valuable copper wire from a Meadow Street warehouse on Aug. 6.

The thieves stole the increasingly precious metal between 1:40 pm and 4 pm, escaping from the warehouse with telephone cables and 25 feet of electrical wire.

Cops haven’t determined if the burglary was an inside job or if the crooks got into the building, which is between Waterbury and Bogart streets, through an unlocked front door.

Copper thefts are rampant in booming Brooklyn right now, as crooks break into barely secured construction sites.

Grocery goons

Cops nabbed two teens suspected of stealing a woman’s cellphone at the corner of Broadway and Hooper Street on Aug. 7.

A 17-year-old girl and a 16-year-old boy confronted their 22-year-old victim as she exited a grocery store at around 12:50 pm, then threw her to the ground and snatched her Sidekick, cops said.

After canvassing the neighborhood, cops caught the suspects at the corner of North Third Street and Bedford Avenue.

Knife-played

Police nabbed a knife-wielding crook who slashed a 22-year-old man in his Manhattan Avenue apartment on Aug. 9.

It is unclear how the 44-year-old hoodlum got into the apartment, which is between Varet and Moore streets, but at around 4:50 am he flashed the blade in front of the victim, cops said.

The victim attempted to disarm the crook, but he received a deep gash across his pinky and ring fingers that required treatment at Kings County Hospital.

Cops apprehended the slasher at the scene.

Speaker heist

Crooks forced their way through two locked doors to steal a pair of high-end Bose speakers from a Powers Street basement on Aug. 5.

The hoodlums got into the residence between 9 am and 7 pm, perhaps through an unlocked roof door, cops said.

Once inside the building, which is between Leonard Street and Manhattan Avenue, the crooks pried open two basement doors and grabbed the fancy speakers.

— Ben Muessig

©2008 The Brooklyn Paper