A woman had her cellphone stolen right out of her hand after a perp tried to grab her purse at the corner of Fourth Avenue and 12th Street at 2 pm on May 12.
The 23-year-old victim told cops that she was near the corner when a thief ran up and tried to grab her pocketbook. When she resisted, the perp took the Samsung cellphone and ran off towards Third Avenue.
The woman did not get a good look at the man.
This smells bad
The Rite-Aid drugstore on Seventh Avenue lost thousands of dollars in perfume when a brazen thief, or a team of hoods, ran into the store, broke into a locked display case, and stole the contents on May 12.
The theft took place at around 8:30 pm, even though a security camera is trained on the display case, cops said.
Police put the total value of the stolen scents at $1,472, but a manager told The Brooklyn Paper that the loss was “more than $5,000.”
“There were three guys who came in and broke into the case,” said Prem Persaud, a manager at the store, which is at Fifth Street. “They got away with more than 150 bottles. I’d say the whole thing is much more than $5,000.”
Joy ride
A thief’s joyride through central Brooklyn ended up with a President Street woman’s car in the tow pound — and her paying to bail out her wheels!
The 74-year-old woman had parked her car near the corner of Sixth Avenue and Carroll Street on April 25 at around 4:30 pm. When she returned to it two days later, it was gone, so she reported the apparent theft to cops.
A thief had taken the car and driven it around for a few hours before abandoning it on a pedestrian walkway at Eastern Parkway and Albany Avenue. By the time the owner noticed the theft, the car was already at the tow pound at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
She had to go there and pay the ticket before the 1999 Honda Civic was returned to her possession.
Caddy cad
Third-row seating is one of the popular options on the Cadillac Escalade — so popular that a thief didn’t bother to steal the car, but took the extra seats instead.
The owner of the 2005 deluxe wheels told cops that he’d parked his gas-guzzler on Carroll Street between Eighth Avenue and Prospect Park West at 9:30 pm on May 10. But when he returned to the mega-car the next morning, he noticed a small drill hole in the driver’s-side door frame.
Closer inspection revealed that the back seats, valued at $700, had been removed, along with a navigation system, a radio and wheel covers. The total value of the theft was $2,000, cops said.
Bicycle thief
An exercise-minded thief stole a woman’s hybrid road bicycle from her apartment at around 10 am on May 7, cops said.
The 32-year-old woman told police that she believed the thief had a key to her apartment, which is on Fifth Avenue between Park and Sterling places, because there were no signs of forced entry.
The bike is worth $400, she said.
iGone
A Sixth Avenue woman lost her iPod and a digital camera to a thief who broke into her apartment on May 10.
The 46-year-old victim told cops that the theft must have occurred between 12:30 and 1:15 pm, when she was not in the apartment, which is between Sixth and Seventh streets. There were no signs of forced entry on the front door, but a second-floor bedroom door had been forced open.
An unspecified amount of jewelry was also pilfered in the heist.
Stealthy thief
A woman who works in a Fifth Avenue gift shop lost the wallet out of her pocketbook on May 10, although the bag was never out of her sight, she said.
The Houdini-like crime occurred sometime between 10 am and 7 pm, cops said. The woman had reported to work at the store, which is at Baltic Street, and placed her handbag behind the counter.
She told cops that the counter was never unattended. Yet when she retrieved the bag at the end of her shift, she noticed that the wallet — which had contained $160 and various credit cards — was gone.
Game theory
A 14th Street apartment was cleaned out of video games and a laptop on May 11 while its residents were out, cops said.
It’s unclear how the thief or thieves got into the apartment, which is between Third and Fourth avenues, but they left with Sony Playstation games, a Dell computer and a Nextel phone.
A neighbor told cops that he heard nothing.
Unhappy visit
A Williamsburg man who visited a friend on Butler Street on May 9 had his backpack stolen after accidentally leaving it on the friend’s front stoop.
The man told cops that he dropped by the building, which is on the quiet block of Butler between Fourth Avenue and Quisenbury Place, and forgot the backpack, which contained $70 and various credit cards.
The bag was stolen long before the man went back outside to head home, at around 6:25 pm. When the 26-year-old called his credit card companies, at least one told him the card had already been used.
