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Cops have arrested a hammer-wielding punk who terrorized Windsor Terrace, smashing at least 30 car windows, until he was finally caught in action with two accomplices.

But this perp was no simple criminal; a police source told The Brooklyn Paper that his crime spree began after a close friend was critically injured in the Bronx.

Just after midnight on Sept. 10, cops from the 72nd Precinct found the suspect hard at work, allegedly smashing the glass of a car’s window with a hammer at the corner of 18th Street and Terrace Place, according to the District Attorney’s office.

The precinct increased police presence in the area in response to the rise in break-ins, and the patrol cops watched as their wanted man broke into an Oldsmobile sedan, stole the radio, and walked over to a waiting get-away car where his two friends were sitting.

But the boys, ages 20, 21, and 22, didn’t make it very far. Cops arrested all three (their identities are being withheld as a matter of policy by The Brooklyn Paper until their lawyers return our reporter’s calls.)

Cops say the ringleader confessed to a multitude of smashings around the neighborhood, the cop source said.

Worried neighbors were relieved to hear the news, having spent weeks e-mailing back and forth about the attacks, said Windsor Terrace Alliance President Lauren Elvers Collins.

“People have been upset about the break-ins,” she said. “People were reporting clumps of cars all over the place that were getting broken into, and people are pretty happy they got caught.”

©2008 The Brooklyn Paper