Midwood, Brooklyn, NY – The NYPD is looking for a gun-toting thief who forced a Midwood man to pull $500 from an ATM near the corner of Avenue J and East 16th Street.
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Investigators from the 70th Precinct say that the victim was exiting a train station at the corner when a 6'1", 160-pound, 25-year-old male wearing a black hooded sweatshirt approached him with a silver plated pistol, asking if he had any money.
When the gunman rifled through the victim's pockets, he found the ATM card and forced him to go to the Valley National Bank across the street to take out some money.
After finding that the ATM machine was broken, the suspect forced the victim to go to a Citibank on Avenue J, where he ordered him to remove $500.
The thief took the money and was last seen jumping the turnstile at the Avenue J subway station.
Police say that the thief could be responsible for a series of similar crimes in the area.
Anyone with information regarding the thief's identity is urged to contact CrimeStoppers at (800) 577-TIPS. All calls will be kept confidential. [Courier-Life]
Whoa, I just realized there is an article on this site about a bank robbery on U and 16th yesterday by a tall black. I wonder if this is the guy who held up the man on J and 16th! Shomrim, please listen up!
Mandel, as someone who lives right near this location, please encourage your relative to be on top of this situation by trying to remember what the perp looked like and possibly ID him through police records. The local precinct may have some possible pics to show him. It will help him heal faster and help the neighborhood as well. Many times, when police don’t have enough evidence, they basically drop the case because of no leads and your relative may have some very valid info.
Where is Shomrim?
Of course the guy is black. It seems to be that black people are shooting at cops and robbing everyone these days. WHere are the black leaders to denounce this garbage of a few bad apples in their midst that give everyone a bad name?
Reverse PIN story is false:
http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl_reverse_pin.htm
How do you reverse it if your pin is 7447 (or the like)?
Horrible, we need to organize small groups of shomrim to guard the streets especially during the summer months when there are so few people around. (near the train stations) Was the film from the ATM’s bank analyzed to find the thief? Refuah Shalama
THE PIN # REVERSAL IS A MYTH FOR NOW:
According to a story published in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch last year, bankers are opposed to the reverse-PIN system because of safety concerns. They worry that ATM users might hesitate or fumble while trying to enter their PINs backwards under duress, possibly increasing the chances of violence. The banking industry is in favor of finding a means to protect ATM customers, a member of the American Bankers Association said, but question whether the reverse-PIN solution is the right one.
Inventor of PIN number reversal system says banks ‘in denial’
The inventor of SafetyPIN, Joseph Zingher, claims the banking industry is afraid to admit the growing extent of the crime of ATM robbery. Exact figures are hard to come by because ATM holdups are lumped in with other types of bank robbery in the FBI’s annual crime statistics. Of the 8,000 to 12,000 bank robberies per year counted by the FBI over the past 15 years, 3,000 to 4,000 (or just over one-third) were ATM robberies, according to the banking industry. Some crime experts suspect the figure is actually higher.
Bankers, for their part, insist they do acknowledge the problem of ATM crime and recommend that customers exercise due caution and be aware of their surroundings when using automated teller machines.
BEST NOT TO USE ATM’S LATE AT NIGHT OR IN DESERTED LOCATIONS.
By the way, if you enter your PIN# backwards, the ATM will still give you money, so a mugger won’t know the difference, but it will alert the police to trouble at the location without putting the victim at added risk. Hopefully, no one should ever need to use this tip, but try to think of what your PIN# is backwards. Most people probably can’t think that clearly under that kind of pressure. But if you know what your emergerncy code is, it could be helpful in case of emergency.
I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound like I was accusing the victim in any way. There was no mention of time in the article, so it would have seemed like it may have happened in the early morning. I was at the Citibank at 6 this morning, and although it was still quiet (plenty of parking available!), quite a few businesses were already open, with lots of hustle and bustle outside, particularly on erev Shabbos. That’s why it seemed strange to walk quietly for such a distance. But around midnight, I guess it’s a different story. I hope he recovers quickly from this traumatic experience.
Mandel
I would have been terrified with a gun aimed in my direction. I hope he recovers quickly from the ordeal.
Its someone from my family, and I could tell you he was scared as hell he walked with him the 3 blocks under fear he will shoot him and it was about midnight with not to many people around.
He is so scared he dosnt want to go out at all.
At what time did this happen? And why would a victim walk quietly for almost three blocks and accross the avenue from the Valley National Bank to the Citibank?