MOTT HAVEN — A South Bronx precinct has seen a 66 percent spike in robberies since last month, the commanding officer said.
The thefts have shot up in the 40th Precinct over the past month and make up a majority of the overall 60 percent increase in crime that the area has seen over the past few weeks, according to Inspector Carlos Valdez, the new commanding officer for the precinct.
Valdez cited multiple patterns that officers had seen during the spike.
One cluster has taken place by the Willis Avenue Bridge, where thieves have been stealing property from people walking across from the Manhattan side, generally late at night between 10 p.m. and 3 a.m., he said.
Officers have a few suspects in these robberies but are still working on firming up their cases, according to Valdez.
"We think it’s kids from the Mitchel Houses, but we can’t identify anyone yet," he said. "The good thing that I can tell you about that is it’s been kind of dormant recently."
Police have also been dealing with a string of robberies by 143rd Street, where suspects have been calling in food orders and then robbing the people who deliver it to them.
"Even though we’ve made arrests, we continue to have an issue with it," Valdez said. "So it’s more than one or two individuals."
There has been a series of gunpoint and store robberies by Westchester Avenue as well, where the suspects typically target jewelry as their property of choice, according to Valdez.
Two local Metro PCS stores were robbed at gunpoint as well, but Valdez stressed that these robberies were a citywide problem, not one limited to the 40th Precinct.
He attributed the spike to opportunistic youth crews and a few instances of thieves running into more resistance than they hoped for.
"Some of these robberies are also shoplifters gone bad," he said, "because if a shoplifter, if the owner or security guard tries to stop them and it becomes physical—there’s some sort of altercation—it becomes a robbery."
Valdez took over command of the 40th Precinct earlier this summer in the wake of a scandal that saw 19 officers disciplined for underreporting crimes.
Crime statistics for the command were recalculated after the incident, and as of Aug. 30, the precinct was down for the year in rapes and shootings but up in murders, robberies and felony assaults.
