Burglars struck two apartments within a one-block radius in three days this week.
In the first incident, burglars used the fire escape to sneak into a Park Place apartment, walking out the front door with thousands of dollars worth of electronics.
The resident of the apartment, between Vanderbilt and Carlton avenues, left home on March 10 at 9 am, returning at 8 pm the next day to find his front door partially ajar.
The tenant later told cops he might have left the window next to the fire escape unlocked.
The burglars made off with a Dell laptop, a digital camera and $50 in coins.
In a remarkably similar second incident, burglars sneaked through the front window of a Prospect Place apartment on March 12, took all the valuables, and then boldly walked out the front door.
The resident of the apartment, between Carlton and Vanderbilt avenues, left home at 9 am that day, returning at 8:30 pm to find the front door ajar.
The victim lost a camcorder, an Apple laptop, an iPod, a pair of gold cuff links, a Palm Pilot, and a Samsung cellphone.
Little boy robbed
Cops arrested two teenagers for robbing a 9-year-old boy on March 12 at the corner of Classon Avenue and Park Place.
The boy told cops that the 14- and 15-year-old boys approached him at 3:05 pm, pulled his hat down over his face, saying, “Don’t look,” and then put a knife to his chest and said, “Give me your money.”
The brave kid pushed one of the teens away, lifted his hat, saw the knife, and then ran away. The teens ran after him, yelling, “Stop!” He didn’t.
Cops say they picked up the troubled teens in a subsequent canvas of the area.
Home invasion
Two men were busy burglarizing a Sterling Place apartment when the owner walked in on March 13.
The 27-year-old victim said she returned at 4:45 pm to the apartment, which is between Washington and Underhill avenues. She wasn’t able to get a good look at the two men before they fled the way they had entered — through at unlocked window opening onto a fire escape.
She lost a Panasonic TV projector, her Tivo, a pearl necklace and earrings, an iPod and $400 worth of CDs and video games.
Picked
A pickpocket made a killing at a Vanderbilt Avenue supermarket on March 14.
The victim, 53, was cruising the aisles at around 2:10 pm at the store, which is at Prospect Place, when someone reached into her shopping cart, grabbed her pocketbook, and ran out the front door.
Inside the black leather purse, she’d been carrying $50, a debit card, a Macy’s credit card, and her passport, birth certificate, house keys and prescriptions.
Stoner gets hit
Cops nabbed a 24-year-old guy on March 16 for carrying a Ziploc bag full of a popular tobacco alternative.
The stoned guy was arrested at the southwest corner of Park Place and Underhill Avenue at 6 pm and charged with marijuana possession.
