oyPhone attempt

A bike-riding bandit who has stolen iPhones from gabby Slope pedestrians made another attempt at a swipe on Jan. 23, but was foiled.

Cops say that a 48-year-old woman was on Park Place between Fifth and Sixth avenues at around 6:15 pm — basically the same area and time of the other iPhone swipes — when a man on a bicycle approached her from behind and made a lunge for the popular smartphone.

He didn’t get it, but witnesses briefly chased the assailant, who has been spotted before with the same M.O. The would-be thief got away.

oyPhone arrest

Two men were arrested in an attempt to steal a Brighton Beach man’s iPhone on the Q train under Park Slope on Jan. 22.

The victim told cops that he was “playing on the iPhone” on a Manhattan-bound Q train at around 12:25 pm and wasn’t paying attention as the train pulled into the Seventh Avenue station.

Just before the doors opened, a thief came out of nowhere, grabbed the phone and fled — but the victim followed him out of the car and caught him on the platform. The 23-year-old victim thought he had the upper hand until two accomplices showed up and pummeled the iPhone owner.

All three crooks fled, but two were later collared after the token booth clerk called 911.

Three burgs

Three victims learned a valuable lesson about keeping their valuables safe last week, thanks to three crooks who took advantage of untended stuff. Here’s a round-up:

• A thief stole a computer and a projector from a room inside New York Methodist Hospital on Jan. 14. The victim told cops that he left the stuff inside the Sixth Street medical center at around 3 pm and returned to it an hour later.

• A thief pickpocketed a woman who set her purse down on the floor of a St. Marks Avenue bar early on Jan. 22. The 31-year-old victim told cops that she noticed a 40-year-old “acting suspiciously” near her bag, but by the time she checked, the wallet and the $350 inside it, was gone from the bar, which is between Fifth and Sixth avenues.

• A woman who put her bag on the counter while she got a drink at a Fifth Avenue restaurant on Jan. 23 returned five minutes later to find the bag gone. She told cops that she set the bag down at 3:10 pm inside the restaurant, which is between 13th and 14th streets.

Car toons

At least four cars were broken into — including one from a federal employee and one from an environmental group — last week:

• A thief broke into a car that had been parked on Berkeley Place between Eighth Avenue and Plaza Street West on Jan. 12 and stole the front airbags. The driver, who was using the Council on the Environment’s company Prius, discovered the crime on Jan. 18.

• A man who left thousands of dollars in electronics inside his Honda when he went to work inside Prospect Park on Jan. 18 returned to find all of it gone. The victim told cops that he’d parked on Union Street between Eighth Avenue and Prospect Park West at around 8:15 am, but when he returned at 1:20 pm, he discovered that a computer, a camera and other equipment was gone.

• A thief picked the wrong patsy — the federal government — when he broke into a U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement officer’s private Volvo on Prospect Park West and stole sirens, a flashlight, a navigation system and an expandable baton suitable for keeping people in line. The worker told cops that he had parked the car between 13th and 14th streets at 8 pm on Jan. 13, but it had been broken into by Jan. 19 at 8 am.

• A thief took advantage of a victim’s open-door policy, stealing thousands in electronics and apparel from a car that had been left in a Second Avenue parking lot overnight on Jan. 14. The victim told cops that he left the car in the lot, near Sixth Street, at 5:40 pm, but when he returned the next morning at 9:20, his camera, iPod, Playstation system, sunglasses, sneakers, clothes and $150 were gone. He admitted that he’d left the back door open.

— Gersh Kuntzman

©2010 Community Newspaper Group