CROWN HEIGHTS — A 35-year-old man looking to sell two motorized scooters on the street last week was robbed of the devices by a group of teens with a gun, police said.
The victim was trying to sell the two “hoverboards,” valued at about $750, on the corner of Carroll Street and Washington Avenue in Crown Heights at 7:30 p.m. on Nov. 25 when a group of three teenage boys walked up to him, according to the NYPD.
One in the group threatened the 35-year-old with a black gun and the suspects snatched the hoverboards and fled into a large apartment building south of the robbery, police said.
It’s unclear if the suspects were the intended purchasers of the motorized two-wheeled scooters, which have become targets of thefts in the neighborhood recently. On Oct. 29, a group of men punched and robbed three teenagers for their hoverboards on Eastern Parkway, police said, and in August, a 24-year-old man was robbed of two of the devices by a buyer from Craigslist on Nostrand Avenue.
No suspects have been identified in the Nov. 25 robbery; the victim was uninjured in the incident.
Other notable crimes in this week’s blotter from the 71st Precinct in Crown Heights and Prospect-Lefferts Gardens include:
The map above depicts only those blotter items compiled by DNAinfo New York within the date range indicated, not all crimes that took place in a given precinct. To see all previous crime blotters from the precinct, click here.
► Police arrested a 35-year-old man after officers found illegal testosterone and an expandable baton in his 2004 Lexus, which they had pulled over on President Street and Nostrand Avenue for a cracked windshield around 11:45 p.m. on Nov. 29. When the officers discovered during the stop that the driver had a suspended license, they searched the car and found the bottle of testosterone cypionate, a steroid, under someone else’s name and the baton, which is an illegal weapon, police said.
► A 26-year-old worker at the T-Mobile store on the corner of Nostrand Avenue and Eastern Parkway was slashed in the face by a belligerent man in the shop, police said. The victim told police the young man he didn't know walked into the store around 2:40 p.m. on Nov. 30 and lunged for the employee, cutting him with an unknown object in the face and ear. The man then fled the store.
► A 12-year-old boy was robbed of his iPhone by a pair of suspects around 3:20 p.m. on Dec. 1, according to the NYPD. The boy was walking home on President Street near Nostrand Avenue when two suspect approached him, held his arms behind his back and went through his pockets. They fled in opposite directions on President Street with his cellphone.
► Police responded to reports of shots fired from the roof of 388 Midwood St. between Nostrand and New York avenues around 11 p.m. on Dec. 1 and discovered four .380 shell casings at the locations. No injuries or damage was reported from the shooting, police said.
► A repeat car thief made off with a 43-year-old man’s 2012 Toyota Corolla that he had left running with the keys in the ignition on the Eastern Parkway service road at Utica Avenue, police said. The man had been talking with his cousin near the car around 11 p.m. on Dec. 1 when an unknown man got into the car and drove away toward Rochester Avenue. Subsequent to an investigation, police discovered the suspect had ditched another car on the service road before making off with the Corolla; the first car had been reported stolen earlier that night from a parking garage in Queens.
