A string of burglaries hit Brooklyn Heights last week, as at least four apartments within spitting distance of each other were broken into — two of them on the same floor of the same building.
The first strike came on Feb. 11, when a Willow Street resident was gone from her apartment, which is between Orange and Cranberry streets. She had left in the morning, but didn’t get back until 9:30 am the next day when she discovered that her laptop, her Coach bag, and a fancy watch and other jewelry had been swiped.
The perp, who sneaked in through a window opening onto a fire escape, got away with $3,145 total, cops said. A downstairs neighbor reported hearing banging noises around 10 pm, but hadn’t bothered to investigate further.
Cops believe that the same thief burglarized the same floor the very next day. The 27-year-old tenant told cops that she left the building around 7 am, and when she got back at 5 pm, she noticed that the bedroom window, which looks out onto the fire escape, had been opened.
Upon further examination, she realized that the thief had taken her laptop, a pair of earrings and an iPod — a total loss of $2,200.
Just down the block, another upper-story apartment was burglarized on Feb. 11. The resident left in the morning and returned in the evening to find that the window nearest the fire escape had been opened, although in this case the crook had taken only two digital cameras, worth $410. Perhaps he was fatigued.
Around the corner, in a building on Orange Street between Willow and Hicks streets, a renter returned from a week on Feb. 11 to discover that another “fire escape burglar” had raided her home for a laptop, a pearl necklace and other valuables. In all, she lost $5,295 in stuff.
Missing money
A restaurant employee who was entrusted with taking $5,000 to the bank on Feb. 14 may have followed the age-old advice, “Take the money and run.”
The 35-year-old left the Henry Street restaurant — located near Cranberry Street — around midnight with a stuffed, cash-filled envelope. When he had still not returned an hour later, the boss called his cellphone. The money-carrier never picked up, and no one has heard of him since.
Jeans jacked
An unsubtle shoplifter made a clean getaway with 20 pairs of jeans from a Smith Street store on Feb. 15.
The clothing store, near the corner of Bergen Street, was quiet around 5 pm when a store employee heard the security alarm go off. Unfortunately, the perp was long gone.
A subsequent perusal of the selling floor revealed that a stack of designer jeans — worth $2,920 — had been stolen.
The store has security cameras inside, cops reported, but they were out of order.
Masked muggers
A quartet of masked bandits accosted and robbed a man walking to a subway station on the night of Feb. 15.
The 27-year-old victim was walking on Fulton Street near Adams Street, on his way to the Borough Hall station at around 10 pm, when the four masked men approached him.
Three of them grabbed him and held him against a wall while the fourth thug went through his pockets, taking $200 and numerous credit cards, which the man immediately cancelled.
