NINTH PRECINCT
Fatal stabbing
On Mon., March 25, around 8:47 p.m., police responded to a 911 call of an assault in front of 1115 F.D.R. Drive, near E. 11th St., at the Jacob Riis Houses.
Responding officers found a 27-year-old man with a stab wound to the stomach. E.M.S. medics transported the victim to Bellevue Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
A police spokesperson said a man was taken in for questioning — but had not been arrested, and had possibly already been released.
“A witness ID’d him having an argument with the victim before the stabbing,” he said.
However, it wasn’t clear if this man was actually a suspect in the stabbing, the spokesperson said, adding he could not immediately say how long before the stabbing the alleged argument occurred.
The investigation remains ongoing. Police are withholding the victim’s name until his family has been properly notified.
SIXTH PRECINCT
Knicker robber
Police are searching for a man believed to have stolen $8,000 from the Knickerbocker Bar & Grill, at University Place and E. Ninth St., on Fri., March 22, around 1 a.m. The suspect is said to have broken into the basement via a side door on E. Ninth St., but once inside was confronted by a 62-year-old restaurant employee.
The suspect is alleged to have subdued the worker by tricking him into thinking he was carrying a gun before throwing the worker to the ground and tying his hands and feet together with duck tape.
Restaurant co-owner Ron D’Allegro told NBC 4 that before running off with the money, the robber told the hog-tied employee to “wait 20 minutes before you can call anything.”
“So, he waited a couple minutes, got out of the duct tape, got up and called the cops,” D’Allegro said.
Police described the suspect as Hispanic, wearing a black jacket, gray hooded sweatshirt, black pants, gray sneakers and a black backpack.
Anyone with information is asked to call the Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). Tips can also be submitted on the CrimeStoppers Web site at WWW.NYPDCRIMESTOPPERS.COM, on Twitter @NYPDTips or by texting to 274637 (CRIMES) and then entering TIP577.
FIRST PRECINCT
Burglary spree
An employee at the French bistro Felix at 340 West Broadway, at Grand St., reported to work on the morning of Mon., March 18, to find the front door wide open and nearly all the cash stored inside stolen.
Police said that two men broke into the restaurant between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m. that morning and smashed the store’s cash registers before breaking into the safe upstairs from which they stole $12,568.
The first thief is described as being a black man wearing blue sweatpants, a black jacket and white sneakers. The second is described as a white Hispanic man wearing sweatpants, a black jacket and white sneakers. Both are estimated to be around 5-feet-8-inches tall and 150 pounds.
In addition, two men are accused of burglarizing the Parisian-styled restaurant Laudrée, at 396 W. Broadway, on Mon., March 18, between 2:50 a.m. and 2:58 a.m. The pair reportedly broke through the front door and stole $1,000 from two cash registers before exiting from the store’s rear.
The front and back doors, each costing $4,000, were damaged in the break-in, resulting in $9,000 in reported losses for Laudrée.
The description of the two suspects was the same as in the Felix burglary.
Also, two men with similar descriptions to the above two incidents are also accused of breaking into the Bon Point clothing store, at 398 W. Broadway, that same morning between 2:58 a.m. and 3:15 a.m.
Police said they came in through the rear door by breaking a window first and then presumably unlocking the door. The two are accused of breaking a wood wardrobe, plus taking $500 from a cash register and an additional $200 from behind the counter before leaving through the back door. Adding in damages to the window and cabinet, the burglars caused $2,350 in losses to the place.
Again, police had not officially stated that the three incidents were related, but it sounds like they may well have been the same suspects in each case.
Balenciaga job
Police are looking for three individuals alleged to have robbed the high-end Balenciaga boutique, at 148 Mercer St., in Soho, then fled the scene in a similarly bougie silver 2018 Mercedes-Benz C300.
A police report states the trio entered the store on Sat., March 23, around 6:45 p.m., then grabbed two purses and one pair of shoes worth $4,975 in total from a display shelf near the door before fleeing in the Mercedes.
The first robber is described as a black woman with long red hair, in a blue sweatshirt, blue jeans and brown shoes. The second is said to be a black woman with long straight hair, wearing sneakers, a tan overcoat and leggings. The last accused perp is described as a black male, sporting a black baseball cap, dark blue jeans, a black jacket and white sneakers. The sedan was recorded having the New York license plate JBZ1331.
‘Bad optics’
A 31-year-old man reported that his silver 2007 Nissan four-door sedan was broken into sometime between 6:05 a.m. and 7:05 a.m. on Sun., March 24, after he parked it in front of 166 Mercer St., south of Houston St.
The car owner said that upon returning to the vehicle, he found the driver’s side rear window shattered and $2,800 worth of ophthalmologist equipment missing.
A witness reportedly described the perpetrator as a roughly 5-foot-5-inch-tall black man in blue jeans, a jacket and brown skullcap.
Marshal scam
A 30-year-old man who works at 378 Hudson St., near Houston St., fell prey to a phone scam on Wed., March 20, which cost him $8,000, police said.
The victim reported receiving a phone call around 1 p.m. from someone claiming to be a U.S. marshal, who stated the victim’s Social Security number was compromised and being used by a drug trafficker in El Paso. The phony official informed the man he would need to send $27,000 in Bitcoin that day to receive a new number or have a warrant issued for his arrest.
The man said he deposited $3,000 at a Bitcoin kiosk on E. Houston St. and another $5,000 in New Jersey before cutting contact with the scam artist around 5:20 p.m.
Rico Burney
