Weather might be the culprit in a spike in the number of robberies since Jan. 1 compared to last year, police said.
There were 179 major crimes in the 104th Precinct over the 28-day period since the beginning of the year including 39 robberies, Captain Michael Cody, commanding officer of the precinct said Feb. 16 at a Committee of Organizations of Precincts meeting.
That’s almost double the robberies over the same period in 2011.
“We’re up 19 robberies from last year. At this point in time we had 20, but we also had probably one of the best cops in the world last year; we had the snow storms,” Cody said.
Some of the spike is also attributable to isolated incidents and a rash of bank robberies where bandits used notes to demand money.
Six of the 39 were bank robberies, but police working with the major crimes unit in Brooklyn arrested a man responsible for hitting four banks in the 104.
He was responsible for robbing a Maspeth Federal Savings, a Cross County Federal Savings on Fresh Pond Road and the back-to-back robberies of two banks on Metropolitan Avenue in Middle Village on Jan. 19, Cody said.
Police are still looking for another suspect who used a threatening note to rob a Chase bank at 69-55 Grand Avenue in Maspeth on Feb. 4.
“He got lucky up here,” Cody said. “He got $9000. Basically the teller probably reached for the drawer that had more money than the other one.”
He’s described as a black male in his 30s who is 5 feet 11 inches tall and weighs about 190 pounds.
Other notable crimes included nine felonious assaults and seven burglaries.
All but one of the assaults were domestic except for a taxi driver who was hit with a bottle in a road-rage incident, Cody said. He added that police closed out six of those nine cases with arrests.
Cody pointed out that in the first 28-day period of the year there were no homicides, shootings or stabbings.
The captain also highlighted a drug-stop in the middle of Maspeth that netted a driver getting high in his car.
A seargent noticed a car pulled off to the side of the Long Island Expressway near Hamilton Road. The Captain said the occupant had apparently just purchased drugs and was on his way home to Long Island when he pulled onto the shoulder to sample the purchase.
“He couldn’t help himself. He had to sniff a bag of dope before going back to Long Island,” Cody said.
By Jeremiah Dobruck
Forum Newsgroup Photo by Jeremiah Dobruck
j.dobruck@theforumnewsgroup.com
