Potted plant
A dope-smoking thug beat up a man heading to a Laundromat near Fourth Avenue on March 7 — but the reign of hallucinogenic terror ended quickly, thanks to a fast-moving officer.
The victim told police that he was on Seventh Street at around 6:40 pm when a man rushed over and cut him on the leg with a mini lockblade, causing a slice on the leg.
The perp fled, but was collared within minutes by Officer David Mathura, who claimed he not only found the knife, but a bag of pot, too.
Car mania
Car thieves are back in business in Park Slope, hitting at least five vehicles last week. Here’s the bad news:
• A Volkswagen Passat was swiped off President Street on March 1. The victim said that he’d parked the car between Nevins and Third Avenue at around 8 am, but it was gone by 4 pm.
• A thief got a nifty BMW that had been parked on Carroll Street between Fifth and Sixth avenues at around 11:45 pm on Feb. 28. The next day at noon, it was gone.
• That most desirable of wheels — a 1993 Buick — was swiped off Prospect Park West sometime between 9:30 pm on Feb. 28 and 10 pm on March 1. The victim said that he’d parked the Century sedan between Second and Third streets.
• A music-loving thief stole a conga drum and a boom box out of a Jeep that had been parked in that quiet corridor of Flatbush Avenue near the zoo on March 6. The victim told cops that he’d left the car between Empire Boulevard and Grand Army Plaza at around 4:20 pm and returned to it three hours later to find the glass smashed and the fun stuff missing.
• A Staples shopper left his car for just a half-hour in the office superstore’s parking lot on Fourth Avenue on March 4, but returned to find his side door open and his cellphone and laptop missing. The victim said he was only in the store, which is at Third Street, between 8 and 8:30 am.
Bar grabs
There were at least two purse-snatchings inside eating and drinking establishments. Here are the details:
• A thief took advantage of an employee who had been working the night shift at Sugarcane on Flatbush Avenue on March 3. Cops say that a surveillance camera showed the thief enter at around midnight and start rummaging through coats until he found the victim’s wallet. The 34-year-old employee at the restaurant at Sixth Avenue didn’t notice the crime — and his stolen Green Card — until 4 am.
• A thief swiped a woman’s bag off a chair at the Flatbush Avenue Dunkin Donuts on March 5. The victim told cops that she had been enjoying a baked good at around 4 pm, but the nice taste in her mouth vanished at 5:30 pm, when she discovered that her purse, which contained credit cards and an iPod, had been swiped from the eatery, which at St. Marks Avenue.
Building baddie
A thug stole a woman’s bag as she tried on clothes at a boutique on Fifth Avenue on March 4.
The victim told cops that she was in a dressing room in the shop, which is between 11th and 12th streets, for just a few minutes at around 8:30 pm.
When she came out, her bag was gone — and with it her credit cards and transit worker identification.
He’s sick
A thief used the oldest trick in the book — pretending to have a sick mother — to steal an Eighth Avenue doctor’s laptop on March 3.
A surveillance camera in the office, which is between St. Johns and Lincoln places, spotted the victim enter the office at around 12:20 pm and tell the receptionist that he was waiting for his mom, who would soon show up for an appointment.
At some point, the receptionist went to the back of the office — and that’s when the thief went to work, first stealing a book of stamps.
Emboldened, he then took a laptop and left.
His mother, the police report said, “never showed.”
Cops are looking for a 6-foot-1, 230-pound man with black hair in braids.
— Gersh Kuntzman
