WILLIAMSBURG — An 81-year-old woman had her nose broken after she was thrown to the ground and robbed of her purse during a Christmas mugging, police said.
Another woman was punched and robbed on her way to church on Christmas Eve, while on Christmas morning a 73-year-old man got robbed at knife and gunpoint, the NYPD said.
The violent incidents mark an uptick in robberies in the last week of the year, double the weekly average for Williamsburg's 90th Precinct.
From Dec. 21 to the 28, there were 10 robberies reported in the 90th Precinct, an area that runs between Metropolitan Avenue to the north and Flushing Avenue to the south. In an average week there are usually about five robberies in the precinct, according to police statistics.
For the year as a whole, robberies were up by 7 percent as of Dec. 20., while robberies for the city as a whole were up 2 percent.
The 81-year-old woman was attacked while walking to the subway on Montrose Avenue near Humboldt Street at around 6:30 p.m. on Dec. 26, according to police.
Two teenagers crept up behind her, shoved her to the ground and stole her pocketbook and $100 cash, police said.
The woman broke her nose on the sidewalk and sliced open her lip. She was taken to Woodhull Hospital, police said.
Two suspects, a 15-year-old and a 16-year-old, were later arrested and linked to two other robberies in the week, local police said.
"It was a strong-armed robbery pattern - a group of people robbing people in the streets," said Deputy Inspector Mark DiPaolo, the head of the 90th Precinct. "We were able to charge the bad guys with three of the robberies this weekend."
In a separate incident, a woman walking to church on Christmas Eve just after 8 p.m., also on Montrose Avenue near Avenue of Puerto Rico, was attacked by two men who punched her in the face multiple times and grabbed her bag, making off with cash, perfume, a wallet and other items worth $400, police said.
No arrests had been made in that incident as of Wednesday morning.
While the number of robberies in the 90th Precinct was up slightly up from last year, Williamsburg's 90th Precinct still had fewer robberies reported than nearby areas of Bushwick and Bedford-Stuyvesant.
