Police Blotter: A Slashing on 14th Street

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

A Beating and a Slashing

A group of three men clad in black hoods cut a man with a razor blade and punched him in the face on 14th Street on Feb. 11.

The 23-year-old victim said he was walking home when he reached 14th Street between Prospect Park West and 8th Avenue at around 11:55 p.m. when the group of men, all wearing black hooded sweatshirts and one was wearing a yellow bandana, asked the victim if he was, “Down with the [Latin] Kings?”

The victim, who was wearing black and yellow sneakers, the colors of the gang, said he was “neutral”. 

Then, the man wearing the bandana snapped back, “Why are you rocking those colors?” Then one of the group punched the victim in the face while another slashed him with a razor blade.

The victim was prepared to defend himself before the group fled eastbound on Prospect Park West. The injured man walked to New York Methodist Hospital, it was not clear where he was cut.

Bike Be Gone

A crook stole a three-month-old bike that was chained to a fence on Third Street on Feb. 5.

The victim said that he locked up his shiny new $1,400 two-wheeler with a heavy-duty chain at around midnight on Sunday between Fourth and Fifth avenues.

But when he went down to take a ride on his blue Yurba Mundo that has a baby seat on the back at 8 a.m., he noticed that it was missing. All that was left was the cut chain. 

Train Theft

A quick-handed thief snatched an iPad out of a man’s hands on an F train at the 4th Ave-9th Street station on Feb. 9.

The victim said he was riding on a southbound F train between 6:45 and 7 p.m. when a man snatched his iPad once the doors opened and ran off from the platform.

Two Cellphones Stolen

A woman had her cellphone snatched from her after refusing to give another woman a dollar on Fifth Avenue. 

The victim said the crook, who is about 25-years-old, first asked if she could spare a buck at about 1:45 a.m. on Feb. 5 near Fifth Street. Once the victim said she did not have any money, the mugger grabbed her elbow and took the woman's eyeglasses and cellphone and ran away.

In a separate incident, a crook snatched an iPhone out of a woman’s hand on Fourth Avenue, jumped into a parked van and then drive away on Feb. 7.

The victim said that she was between Fifth and Sixth streets at around 1:30 p.m. when the fast thief, who was wearing black work boots and a beige overcoat, snatched her iPhone and hopped into a green van and drove towards Fifth Street and turned right on to Fifth Avenue.