GREENPOINT — Residents who don't lock their doors are giving thieves easy access to their apartments, driving a nearly 24 percent rise in burglaries in Greenpoint and Williamsburg from 2013 to 2014, police said.
More than half of 2014's residential burglaries in the 94th Precinct were the result of locals leaving their apartment doors and windows open, according to Capt. James Ryan, the precinct's commanding officer.
North Williamsburg and Greenpoint saw 236 burglaries through Dec. 28, 2014, up from 191 the previous year. Police did not clarify how many of the year's burglaries were residential.
"It's almost like a dorm atmosphere, where most of the doors are open," Ryan said at the year's first community policing meeting Wednesday night. "This is generally a safe neighborhood, and people feel safe. They forget that crime happens everywhere."
Burglaries were the neighborhood's biggest problem in 2014, Ryan said.
Auto theft went up slightly, with three more in 2014 than the previous year, a less than 3 percent increase.
But every other major crime either declined or remained flat in the precinct last year.
Robberies declined by about 22 percent, from 117 in 2013 to 91 in 2014. Felony assaults were down about 21 percent, from 115 in 2013 to 91 in 2014.
Just one homicide occurred at the end of the year when a Greenpoint man was fatally stabbed on Dupont Street on Dec. 29. One homicide happened in the precinct in 2013, as well.
Burglaries have historically been a problem in the neighborhood, Ryan said, and this year, they were worse than usual.
Most thieves try doors until they find one that's unlocked, or use a fire escape to see if a building's apartments have unlocked windows, Ryan said.
"It will always be a problem until every building locks all their doors and closes all their windows," he said.
Ryan also updated residents on the recent homicide, in which 37-year-old Zbigniew Truszkowski was stabbed inside 131 Dupont St. after a dispute on the street.
A suspect, one of Truszkowski's neighbors, has already been identified, and police are currently working with the district attorney's office to make an arrest, Ryan said.
