Suspect (NYPD)
April 19, 2018 By Christian Murray
The police are looking for a man who has been snatching wallets from Queens subway riders.
The suspected allegedly struck at the Roosevelt Avenue station at around 6:40 p.m. on Saturday, April 7, when he reached into a 22-year-old woman’s backpack and took her wallet. The wallet contained the victim’s credit cards, according to police.
Two days later, the man allegedly struck on a crowded Queens-bound 7 train at around 3:30 pm. He allegedly bumped into a 49-year-old woman several times and took her wallet out of her purse. The purse contained several credit cards and $320 in cash, police said.
The suspect is described as a dark-skinned male; last seen wearing a black knitted cap, a gray vest, a gray sweater, gray sweatpants and black and white sneakers.
Anyone with information in regards to this incident is asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782).
2 Comments
1 ) NYPD should patrol the trains like they did in the 70′ & 80’s.
2 ) There’s always problem on a crowded train , ie : pick pockets , strangers rubbing up against women , etc.
Back then there was a separate law enforcement agency called the Transit Police. They’ve since merged with the NYPD. No cop wants to be assigned to work on the subways and they’ll go out of their way to avoid these assignments. They prefer to be in squad cars, understandably so. Ideally, we’d have more cops strolling around busy neighborhoods, too, but this isn’t economically feasible.
Fortunately, subway crime is considerably less of a problem than it was in the 70s and 80s. I occasionally see cops when I transfer from the 7 to the E train in Jackson Heights. I wish they’d crack down on the food vendors selling churros. Selling food in the subway is completely illegal yet these ladies do it as if it’s their right to do so.