SUNNYSIDE — The home of City Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer was burglarized over the weekend, according to the Queens pol who said the incident is one of several nighttime break-ins or attempted break-ins in the neighborhood in recent weeks.
Van Bramer told DNAinfo New York Monday that he and his husband were out of town when they got a call early Saturday morning from neighbors who said they noticed a door and window suspiciously ajar at the couple's home, located on 46th Street in the Sunnyside Gardens Historic District.
The councilman said the thief or thieves used a crowbar to break in, first trying to get through a basement door then "pretty brazenly" going through the front door, where they broke the frame.
"They'd ransacked some of the rooms, and went through drawers and closets and threw everything on the floor," Van Bramer said. "It was a big mess."
A few hundred dollars in cash was missing, he said, as was his husband's bicycle and rings that belong to his elderly mother, which he'd recently picked up for her from the jewelers after they'd been cleaned.
One of the rings had belonged to his grandmother, Van Bramer said.
"That stuff means a lot to us, to our family," he said. "That makes me pretty angry."
According to NYPD statistics, burglaries for the entire 108th Precinct are down this year compared to last year.
But Van Bramer says there have been a handful of break-ins or attempted break-ins over the last several weeks in Sunnyside Gardens, a historic district of landscaped red brick homes between Skillman Avenue and Barnett Avenue.
"I definitely think there's a pattern," he said, saying he knows of "at least a few over the last six weeks or so."
"The most upsetting part is that these are happening overnight when most people are home, sleeping in their homes," he added. "That’s a pretty frightening scenario."
The NYPD did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the incident, or about other burglaries in Sunnyside Gardens.
Van Bramer said he was told police are investigating fingerprints collected at the scene, but that no arrests have been made.
