Police investigating following yet another mugging by someone on a moped
By CBS Team, Astrid Martinez
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NEW YORK (WCBS) — People in the city are worried about the increasing number of criminals using mopeds in snatch-and-grab robberies.
CBS2’s Astrid Martinez has more on the crime wave.
Blink and you might just become a victim. Riding quickly along roads and sidewalks, mopeds are central to a crime trend seen recently across the city.
“Yeah it’s scary. I’m just off for a run right now and I was thinking I wanted to wear a fanny pack with a water bottle and my phone in it and then I was like, why would I put something that could be snatched,” one woman said.
The latest mugging on a moped happened Saturday right across the street from the heavily-trafficked Guggenheim Museum on East 89th Street, Martinez reported Sunday.
“It must’ve been shocking and scary,” an Upper East Side resident said.
Police said two men on a black moped tried to grab a woman’s necklace as she walked with a friend in the afternoon.
Surveillance video shows the two suspects riding along the sidewalk and stopping in front of two women. She fights him off and both men flee.
Officers say the attackers are men, approximately in their 20s and with thin builds.
“I wouldn’t do that. I would just be like ‘It’s yours,'” one woman said.
On Friday at around 1 p.m., police say a 64-year-old man was walking down the sidewalk on West 23rd Street when a passenger of a dirt bike got off, forcibly snatched the man’s watch and pushed him to the ground.
The suspect got back on the dirt bike and all three took off. The victim suffered minor injuries.
The NYPD is looking for the suspects in both incidents and trying to find out if the crimes are connected.
Muggings on mopeds have been taking place most of the year. Another video shows two men riding a scooter, hop up on the sidewalk, grab a woman’s purse and throw her to the ground back in June in Brooklyn.
In July, NYPD was also looking into three Queens moped armed robberies that occurred in less than an hour. Surveillance video of one incident shows two men on a moped allegedly approached a woman walking in front of a home on Kessel Street. According to police, the men pulled out knives and took the woman’s cellphone, debit card and ID before fleeing the scene.
Robberies, assaults and even a drive-by shooting earlier this year in the Bronx that claimed the life of an 11-year-old girl were carried out by criminals driving these devices. Mopeds are fast becoming the criminal’s ride of choice.
Residents said for all, all they can do is stay alert.
“It’s always just be aware and stay around other people,” one woman said.
Anyone with any information is asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477), or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). You can also submit a tip via their website or via DM on Twitter, @NYPDTips. All calls are kept confidential.
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