"Slight Uptick" In Park Slope Robberies

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A tip from a reader pointed us to the Brooklynian message board, where a woman posted about being mugged in Park Slope this past week:

Tuesday night just after 11 pm I got mugged in Park Slope, on Park Place between 6th and 7th by two young African American women (this is a dark block with lots of big trees). I was robbed and bashed on the head by something that felt like a bottle (but may have been something else), and ended up in the hospital with stitches.The cops who came told me this is now a pattern - they are targeting women walking alone on dark streets and asking for directions, either to downtown or in my case, to Court Street. I screamed and they ran away, and grabbed my purse in the process. Please be careful, because they are not afraid to assault you. Previously, they tried to mug another woman on St. Johns, also in Park Slope, same m.o.

We contacted the 78th precinct for more information, and they told us there had been a "slight uptick" in robberies (they preferred to not call it a "mugging"): "Two people, both robberies, the same thing happened to them. They were asked for directions, then something was taken. Detectives are working on it, that's the pattern, that's it, just two," said Community Affairs Officer Galante. Have you heard of, or seen, anything like this in the neighborhood recently?

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Ben Yakas in News on October 2, 2010 10:31 AM

Comments [rss]

learner

Don't panic that the police are calling it a robbery rather than a mugging. Classifying this crime as a robbery means that it is being taken seriously. I know this not because I am a lawyer, but because I have served jury duty and I remember the judge giving us very specific information about how to determine if the prosecutor had proved robbery as compared to a lesser theft-related crime (petit larceny, I think). A 'robbery' is theft with the use of force or violence against a person, and in NY state it is indeed a felony that can result in jail time if caught, prosecuted, found guilty.

SeasTooFarToReach

I'm always weary of people asking directions if the street is isolated or vacant. Just keep walking as if you didn't hear anything!

OSN!

I'll say this again: get rid of housing projects and subsidized section 8-type benefits. If you build or offer these goodies they will come; if you take them away, they'll have no choice but to go elsewhere. Crime will drop like a rock.

OSN!

I'd suggest folks in P.S. engage in good, old fashioned profiling when out and about. A mean friggin dog wouldn't hurt either.

JacqueMehoff

time to break out the vintage CB radio walkie talkies and start a neighborhood watch.

John L

So a mugging is not a mugging it's a robbery now and that's Ray Kelly's crime fighting strategy in a nutshell.

We need a new police commissioner who's worried about actual crime and not numbers.

Qualitative policing not Quantitative bullshit, lowers crime and makes a city safer.

ocm123

"Mugging" is a slang term. Police departments have never officially used the word. The FBI's uniform crime reports certainly has no category for "muggings."

inoyourider

Aren't you dying to watch this video of this scumbag in action?

Guest

in the early 80's, the residents of park slope formed a private security firm to patrol their then robbery-infested neighborhood. after several years, crime dropped so significantly and dramatically that the firm disbanded. and as everyone knows, the real estate shot all the way up.

if you had bought a whole brownstone for around $200,000 in the mid 70's, it is probably worth around $2.5 million now.