Police Blotter: Two Thieves Punch Man and Steal Cell on Train at Grand Army Plaza

The following information was supplied by the 78th Precinct of the NYPD. It does not indicate a conviction.     

Punch and Snatch  

Two violent thieves punched a man in the face while riding the train and stole his iPhone at Grand Army Plaza May 17.  

The 23-year-old victim told police that he got on a northbound 4 train at Franklin Avenue and when the train pulled into Grand Army Plaza at around 3:50 a.m. two men came up to him, punched him in the face, stole his iPhone and ran out of the station. The victim described his attackers as two 20-year-old black men, one standing 5-foot-11, 120 lbs., with short black hair cut in the “Caesar” style, while the other was about 5-foot-9, 190 lbs., wearing black jeans and black sneakers. The crooks got away with the victim’s iPhone 5.  

Bad Education

A crook broke into a car owned by the Department of Education parked on Third Avenue and stole over $5,000 in tools May 13.  

The driver, a 45-year-old DOE employee, told police that he parked the Ford van near First Street at 11 a.m., but left a bunch of expensive tools inside. When he returned to the DOE van, he found that someone had smashed the passenger side window and stole $5,400 in tools. The crook got away with a DeWALT cordless drill kit, a box of assorted tools worth $2,000, miscellaneous burner parts, Fluke digital Multimeter and thermometer kit and a Bacharach flue-gas analyzer.