GREENWICH VILLAGE — Village residents have lost thousands of dollars worth of jewelry, electronics and cash to burglaries recently — all after leaving their apartment doors unlocked, police said.
At least six burglaries this year were at homes where the door was left unlocked, police said, and in at least three cases, residents were sleeping in their beds as the intruder made off with their property.
Now police at the 6th Precinct are pleading with Village residents to lock their doors "until we get rid of every bad person," the 6th Precinct's commanding officer, Elissa Cokkinos, said at the 6th Precinct Community Council meeting Wednesday night.
Recent unlocked-door burglaries in the precinct include:
► A 27-year-old man on East 12th Street returned home from a doctor's appointment on Jan. 12 about 9:50 a.m. to find his patio door open, and both his and his roommate's passports gone, along with $1,000 in cash and thousands more in property. His 30-year-old roommate was at work.
► A 46-year-old man whose Christopher Street apartment was burglarized on Jan. 14 told police he left the door unlocked while he and his roommate were sleeping, police said. When the roommates woke, $2,250 in electronics and cash were missing.
► A 73-year-old woman on West 12th Street, who told police she sometimes leaves her door unlocked, lost $40,000 worth of jewelry on Jan. 17 about 7 p.m., police said. Police said the burglar made off with a $17,000 diamond bracelet, an $11,000 platinum bracelet, a $6,000 diamond ring and two $3,000 pairs of diamond drop earrings.
► A 40-year-old woman on Perry Street had her $8,000 Cartier watch, her purse and her boyfriend's coats stolen about 2 a.m. on Jan. 25 as the couple slept, police said. Police said officers found the woman's purse under the stairwell on the first floor of her building, and their coats on the roof, but the burglar made off with the watch, a $1,200 MacBook Air, a $600 iPhone, $260 in cash, three credit cards, a $20 MetroCard and her health insurance card.
► On Feb. 5, about 12:30 a.m., a thief walked in the front door of a home on Hudson Street and walked out with the female tenant's $2,500 iMac desktop computer.
► A 25-year-old woman and a 28-year-old man were asleep in their Jones Street apartment with the front door unlocked on Feb. 5, when the man woke to see a 6-foot-tall man in a black hat, multicolored coat and glasses slipping away. The burglar made off with a $2,400 24-karat Indonesian gold bangle, $100 gold geometric rings, a $750 Tiffany's gold rope bowtie ring, a $50 plain gold bangle, $70 in cash, a Hilton Reserve Visa and a $2 MetroCard, police said.
The 6th Precinct faced a string of burglaries in unlocked apartments around this time last year as well, and police believed they were all carried out by the same person. This year, however, police do not suspect the unlocked-door burglaries are related.
Cokkinos urged residents to keep their doors locked at all times, even when they're at home. She warned that an intruder surprised by a resident could become violent.
"There's a potential for other things to happen," Cokkinos said.
Click on the markers on the map below for more information on recent crime in the 6th Precinct. The unlocked-door burglaries are marked with green flags.
