Crime Watch

BY JERRY DANZIG

FlooredThis might help explain why some plumbing bills are so high. At 4 p.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 22, a $3,000 piece of plumbing equipment was left chained up on a floor under construction in the new Saks Fifth Avenue store at 225 Liberty St. When he got to work the following morning, a 36-year-old male employee of Louis L. Buttermark Plumbing of Staten Island found that the chain had been broken and a Ridgid EP core drill was missing. Apparently, the floor was accessible to a number of individuals in the building.

Saddle SoreBaked beans were not the problem recently at the Blazing Saddles bike store. At 3:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 8, two men did not return rented bicycles from the South Street store. A store employee told police that the men had used a non-active credit card to secure the rental. The bicycles stolen were two Specialized crossroad bikes valued at $785 apiece, making a total of $1,570 gone with the wind.

Northern InhospitalityDo thieves break into as many cars in Tennessee? At 2:30 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 26, a 27-year-old female visitor from the Volunteer State parked her black 2015 Dodge Durango opposite 129 Front St. When she returned half an hour later, clothing and other items worth $2,850 was missing from the trunk of the SUV. There were no signs of forced entry into the vehicle, and the driver thought she had locked her door. The missing items included a Pandora full charm bracelet valued at $600, four coats worth $500, two pairs of True Religion jeans tagged at $400, an Apple iPad worth $400, ten polo shirts priced at $300, a Samsonite bag valued at $200, Lancôme and Dior cosmetics worth $200, along with assorted souvenirs, a backpack and blankets.

Crew CutPolice took down a gang of bandits who hit two SoHo stores in quick succession. At 6 p.m. on Monday, Dec. 28, four men in their early twenties entered the MCM clothing boutique at 100 Greene St. and made off with two key ring charms valued at $770, another key ring charm valued at $345, another priced at $690, and three more tagged at $780 apiece, making a total haul of $2,585.

Then just eight minutes later, the same criminal quartet entered the What Goes Around Comes Around store at 351 West Broadway, took a Louis Vuitton bag worth $1,150 from a display shelf, and concealed it on their persons before exiting the store without paying for the item. Police caught up to the four individuals shortly afterward. Patrick Noble, 20, William Winter, 22, Samuel Whitmire, 20, and Delano Ballenger, 20, were placed under arrest and charged with grand larceny. They were also found to be in possession of the merchandise from the MCM clothing boutique without the proper sales receipts.