LOWER EAST SIDE — A man on a bicycle rode up behind a 64-year-old woman and grabbed a gold chain from around her neck on Sept. 16, the latest incident in a string of chain-snatchings that have plagued the neighborhood over the past month.
The woman was walking on Columbia Street near Stanton Street at around 11:30 a.m. when the suspect rode up on his bike and snatched her chain from behind before fleeing northbound on Columbia Street, according to authorities.
The stolen jewelry was a Turkish rope gold necklace worth approximately $600, according to a police report.
The incident is the sixth reported necklace-snatching in the neighborhood over the past month. Many of the others were also carried out by a man on a bicycle.
A man on Aug. 30 snatched a $1,750 gold chain from another man's neck while he slept in the subway, the day after another suspect rode up behind a victim on his bicycle and grabbed a chain from his neck, causing him to fall.
And police are still searching for a man they say had been forcefully ripping necklaces from women's necks near the Rutgers and LaGuardia houses in August.
The suspect in the latest snatching, described as roughly 40 years old with short blond hair and brown eyes, is not believed to be related to the previous incidents, police said.
