CROWN HEIGHTS — Police are looking for a group of young men they say are responsible for two cellphone snatchings committed hours apart on neighborhood trains last month.
The suspects, between 14 and 17 years old, police said, found their first victim, a 28-year-old woman, sitting on a northbound Franklin Avenue shuttle train around 7:30 p.m. on Feb. 21 in Crown Heights. As it pulled into the Park Place station, a group of four or five teenagers grabbed her Samsung Galaxy S5 phone out of her hand and fled the train.
Just two hours later, the same thing happened to a 20-year-old woman sitting on a southbound 3 train as it pulled into the Nostrand Avenue subway station, police said. The victim told police she was sitting on the train when four or five teenagers pulled her iPhone 6S out of her hand, then fled on foot.
Police released images of four suspects taken from surveillance footage after the first incident. In a video, two of the suspect are seen running down a ramp at the Park Place train station. The police department also included photos of two separate suspects taken at the station after the theft.
Anyone with information in regards to these incidents is asked to call the NYPD's Crime Stoppers hotline at (800) 577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish (888) 57-PISTA (74782).
