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Another iPhone swiped by the bicycle thief

By Gersh Kuntzman and Laura Gottesdiener
The Brooklyn Paper

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The teenager who has stalked iPhone users in Park Slope for two years continued his reign of terror last week, swiping another of the fancy smartphones from a woman on Flatbush Avenue.

The victim told cops the same story that more than a dozen victims have told since the robbery spree began: She was chatting on her iPhone near the corner of Plaza Street West at around 7:25 pm on Jan. 25 when a teenager approached from behind on a bicycle.

Brooklyn Conservatory

He glided silently towards her, grabbing the phone just as he passed her on the dark colored mini-sized bike. Without missing a beat, he continued on towards St. Johns Place.

If that location sounds familiar to iPhone users, it should: the Jobsphone-robbing thief has been plying his pernicious trade in the area for two years. For a brief time this fall, cops thought they had collared him, but he returned in December.

The victim in the latest case said the crime was a wake-up call.

“I didn’t care so much about the phone, but I was really upset because it happened in the early evening right outside the Grand Army Plaza stop,” said the woman, who requested anonymity because she is a crime victim.

“It was so crazy because it was right in the neighborhood. I feel like I might see him again.”

She said she couldn’t make a good ID on the thief, who was “wearing a gray hat and a black hoodie — looking like a thousand kids in New York.”

She said she had been sending a photo to a friend in California when the thief struck.

“Now I’m mostly upset because the phone had all my photographs, all my personal data, e-mail addresses, contact lists,” she added.

A crime prevention officer in the precinct cautioned all iPhone users to “know where you are at all times and don’t just pull out the phone and start typing.”

©2011 Community Newspaper Group

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Reader Feedback

stallmorce from oakpark says:
"United Forensic College" is allowing me to expand my career choices and earn a higher income in my chosen field of Criminal Justice
Feb. 2, 2011, 5:10 am

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