A worker on the late shift at bakery and cafe Europan was robbed of his iPhone by a man with a gun early Monday, according to ABC News and DNAinfo.
The man entered the store on Broadway near 78th street around 2 a.m. and ordered a Hawaiian slice. When the worker turned to put it in the oven, the thief swiped his iPhone and walked out. When the worker gave chase, the thief pulled out a gun and said Go back inside or I kill you.’”
The 20th precinct said a detective was attempting to retrieve video footage.
“The suspect was described by police as in his 20s, and Martinez said he was wearing a dark green jacket at the time of the robbery,” DNAinfo reported.
If you have information, you can confidentially call 1-800-577-TIPS (8477), submit a tip via www.nypdcrimestoppers.com or text CRIMES (274637) and then enter TIP577.
Image via Google.
This may be a dumb question, but what does one do with a stolen iPhone? Aren’t they registered to a particular user somehow? Or do they get sold to a middleman who “washes” the info off the phone and then resells them elsewhere? (Don’t worry, if anyone has this info I won’t question how you know!)
There is a huge market for stolen phones. While it costs not that much for consumers when they sign on for the phone, the non-contract cost of a phone can be as much as $800. A good portion of stolen phones are shipped overseas to Hong Kong. What makes this crime frustrating is that all cell phone manufacturers have the ability of implementing a “kill” switch. So if a phone is stolen a signal could be sent to it and it would self-destruct. (Not explode; it will just destroy the circuits). Sadly, most companies are slow in adopting this. One, it is an additional cost for them to build this function. Two, manufactures make a sizable profit by replacing stolen phones. A lot of city officials, especially in New York, have urged these manufacturers to implement the kill switch. Apple has done it for their latest model but there are ways to avoid it. There needs to be kill switches on all phones that are hard coded to the MAC address. If that happens the business of robbing people of their phones would end overnight. The bottom line – treat your cell phone like a wad of $100’s. Keep it hidden and be discreet when using it.
Thank you Lucien, very informative. I actually like the idea of a kill switch that explodes the stolen phone!
To all who are and were opposed to stop and search…
This one could have been stopped had the police searched him.
Welcome to the Wild West side as we knew it in the seventies and early eighties.
As long as mayor di Blasio hangs out with ex fat man Sharp…weighed a Ton, things will not get much better.
We are in the fast lane, crime wise, to the past.
Nostalgia anyone?
While that can be correct in theory Zeus but in reality the chances of cops being out in that area at 1-2am to stop and frisk are slim to none. I know for a fact.
The US Constitution prohibits the search you so desperately seek. No evidence of a crime, no reasonable suspicion – no search.
To wit:
Many Wall Street employees live on the UWS; shall we start searching random apartments because insider trading is common on Wall Street? (At a considerable cost to the US tax payer, I might add.) You would be willing to let the police do a thorough search of your home? Just in case?
Another typical liberal response to violent crime:
Wall street are criminals!
Stop the name calling and address the issue, please? Is it okay to search anyone, at any time, anywhere, because they might be considering committing a crime?
sadly, i have to repeat this over and over.
things the police CAN and DO do now under Comrade De Blasio:
— stop and frisk someone if he is acting suspicious (no warrant required)
— stop and frisk someone if they think he is breaking a law (carrying a gun)
— stop and frisk someone if they think he or she has committed a crime or matches the description of a suspect
— stop and frisk someone based on almost any reasonable suspicion or even hunch.
things the police HAVE STOPPED doing:
— stopping and frisking thousands and tens of thousands of people who have committed no crime, are not suspects in a particular crime, and are not acting suspicious… but are stopped and frisked based on racial and ethnic profile.
You don’t HAVE to repeat over and over.
You choose to do it.
Personally, I wish you would not.
Was he factually correct or not?
bruce is factually correct. As inconvenient as that may be to some of these arguments.
i have to keep repeating it because people don’t seem to understand what is done now and what was changed.
Why do you two argue every day in these comment sections? This is like the old-fashioned UWS, I guess, except the yelling takes place on the screen and not in local cafes. Anyway, I think most of the rest of us would like you to stop the constant arguing. You each know what the other will say. Worse, we all know what you will say. I’m not questioning your sincerity, just your sense of proportion.
I agree with Zeus, stop and frisk would have prevented this (provided the perpetrator was a minority, otherwise definitely not). Better yet, we should have police checkpoints every couple of blocks to stop and frisk everyone, that way there will be no crime just like the Bloomberg era.
Lock everybody up. Use those in prison as cheap labor to compete with China. It is a win win. With any profit made use it to hire crews to wash the blood off the sidewalks at night.
It costs around $168,000 per inmate per year in NYC! And we get to foot the bill. We should take a page from Maricopa County, let convicted criminals sleep in tents.
I’d take it one step further. Only those who exhibit good behavior EARN indoor accommodations.
So, the suspect is in his 20s. That should narrow things down, shouldn’t it. It’s like that Chief Wiggam line: “suspect is hatless, repeat hatless”
I would hope that a place open 24 hours would have surveillance cameras for the safety of their employees and to deter this kind of crime. I imagine they are very thinly staffed at that time of night, sounds like there was only one person out front and one in the back. If the police are afraid of some kind of backlash for providing a more detailed description, surveillance camera pictures might take care of that problem for them. How is the public supposed to be able to help identify the subject if the only description they have is what color his jacket was. Why is everyone blaming WSR for not further identifying the subject when other blogs don’t seem to provide more information either. Does anyone know for sure that the police are providing more information to the public?
There they go again, describing the perpetrator as wearing a “dark green jacket”.
There are many people who wear dark green jackets who do not commit crimes.
When will this senseless discrimination against people wearing dark green jackets end?
This blog really should stop publishing these darkgreenjacketish descriptions. Especially on the Upper West Side, with its liberal traditions of not caring the color of your jacket, we should not be encouraging the darkgreenjacketists who really have no place here anyway.
I too am against jacket profiling. Thank god it wasn’t à hoodie.
And frankly I take offense to the inference the suspect was in his 20’s. I mean seriously how many 20 somethings are going to be perceived as guilty based on this.
Come on Avi this is just plain ageism and has no place on the USW given it’s history of inclusiveness and harmony amongst all.
From now on, descriptions should be “A person” so that absolutely no one take offense.
How do we really know it was a person, really? Perhaps a couple of dogs or cats climbed on top of each other’s shoulders and pulled on an old trench coat. Or maybe it was a ghost?
Really, we need to return to our egalitarian UWS roots and simply use the passive voice — “a robbery occurred” — and stop pointing prejudiced fingers that will only incite and inflame.
Yeah but was it really even a “robbery”? I mean this whole concept of possessions and personal property is so elitist and oppressive. All this stuff is really just in the ether man, ya dig? Let’s all just share and share alike, ok? Groovy, man,
What is “crime” if not a reaction to bourgeois oppression and deeply entrenched economic, racial and sexual injustice?
So the robber with the gun won The Masters?