Brazen attack

A vicious thug tried to force himself upon a 31-year-old woman in the lobby of her Wythe Avenue apartment on Oct. 20.

The cruel crook pushed his way into the building, which is between North Eighth and Ninth streets, as the victim checked her mailbox at around 6:40 pm.

Once inside, the hoodlum blocked the doorway. When the victim tried to squeeze past him to open the front door, the thug demanded cash.

“If you wanna leave, it will cost you $40,” the crook said, then shoved the victim to the ground and started to unbutton his jeans.

Luckily, a neighbor walked into the lobby and scared off the vile villain.

Sick spokes-man

A criminal cyclist slashed a 31-year-old woman in the face when she tried to stop him from stealing her iPod on Oct. 25.

The pedal-pushing perp rode his bike and the sidewalk at the corner Lorimer Street and Driggs Avenue and snatched the iPod from the victim’s sweater pocket at around 6:20 pm.

But before he could ride away, the victim grabbed his shirt in a desperate attempt to slow him down.

“You think you’re tough?” the thug asked as he dismounted the bike.

The crook punched the woman repeatedly and cut her lips with a knife, before fleeing, cops said.

Undropped call

A crook tried to snatch a jogger’s cellphone on Oct. 22, but an athletic witness chased the would-be-thief until cops arrived.

The suspected crook tried to grab the phone as the 29-year-old victim trotted around the McCarren Park track near the corner of Bedford and Driggs avenues at around noon, but the victim held onto her cell and the crook fled.

An onlooker gave chase and stopped the 17-year-old suspect at the corner of Bedford Avenue and North 12th Street, until police locked him up.

Delivery serviced

Thugs choked and mugged a deliveryman as he attempted to drop off Chinese food to a Frost Street residence on Oct. 19.

As the victim entered the building at around 11:30 pm, crooks dragged him to a stairwell and told him to cover his eyes.

The hoodlums grabbed $100, his cellphone, and the Chinese food, before fleeing the apartment, which is between Debevoise and Kingsland avenues.

Sidekicks

Cops nabbed two thugs suspected of roughing up a man and stealing his Sidekick cellphone at the corner of Manhattan Avenue and Calyer Street on Oct. 19.

The alleged muggers punched the victim in the face at around 2 am and grabbed the phone, leaving him bruised and bloody.

But police canvassed the neighborhood and locked up two suspects at the corner of Oak and Franklin streets five blocks away.

Bank robbery

A crook robbed a Manhattan Avenue bank of $1,900 on Oct. 25.

The perp entered the bank at around 12:30 pm and asked a teller for change for a $100 bill. The crook left the bank after getting the change, but he returned five minutes later to demand cash.

“This is a robbery. I’m not playing with you,” the thug told a teller.

One bank employee handed the thug $850 and another forked over $1,050, before the robber fled southbound on Manhattan Avenue.

Pane in the glass

Burglars pried open windows to steal laptops from at least two Greenpoint apartments on Oct 24. Here are the details:

• Thieves forced open a first-floor window to heist a MacBook laptop from an apartment on Freeman Street between Manhattan Avenue and Franklin Street between 8 am and 6 pm.

• Just hours later, crooks climbed into an apartment on Huron Street at Franklin Street through an unlocked front window and stole a Dell laptop.

The burglars snatched the laptop between 11 am and 10:15 pm.

— Ben Muessig

©2008 Community Newspaper Group