Police from the 108th Precinct in Long Island City are looking for a pair of moped-riding criminals who targeted pedestrians on Queens Boulevard in broad daylight on consecutive Sundays last month.
In the latest incident, at around 3:15 p.m. on May 26, the two men rode up alongside a 21-year-old man in the vicinity of 50th Street and Queens Boulevard in Woodside.
They allegedly snatched his Apple AirPods from his head, causing him to tumble to the ground. The victim sustained minor injuries and refused medical attention at the crime scene, police said. The suspects sped away on a blue and black moped heading westbound past Sabba Park into Sunnyside, where they proceeded down 47th Street toward the Long Island Expressway.
The same men struck a week earlier along the Sunnyside and Long Island City border at around 3:40 p.m. on Sunday, May 19.
The two suspects rode up alongside a 29-year-old woman as she walked along Queens Boulevard near 40th Street and forcibly removed her Apple AirPods from her head before speeding away on the blue and black moped northbound on 40th Street toward Astoria, police said. The victim was not injured during the grand larceny incident.
Investigators have determined that the same suspects struck in Williamsburg, Brooklyn nearly a half hour earlier on May 19 in the confines of the 90th Precinct.
In that incident, the suspects rode up alongside a 24-year-old woman in the vicinity of Grand Street and Leonard Street at 3:15 p.m. They allegedly shoved her to the ground, pulled her hair and grabbed her Apple AirPods from her head before speeding away from the crime scene eastbound on Grand Street before turning north back to Queens.
The NYPD released surveillance images of the two suspects from the Woodside robbery on Queens Boulevard and 50th Street and described them as wearing dark clothing. A reward of up to $3,500 is offered for information leading to their arrest.
Anyone with information regarding these incidents is asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the Crime Stoppers website at crimestoppers.nypdonline.org, or on X (the platform formerly known as Twitter) @NYPDTips. All calls and messages are kept confidential.
Through June 2, the 108th Precinct has reported 298 grand larcenies so far in 2024, 5 fewer than the 303 reported at the same point last year, a decline of 1.7%, according to the latest CompStat report. Robberies are also down slightly in the precinct with 108 reported so far this year, 3 fewer than the 111 reported at the same point in 2023, a decline of 2.7%, according to CompStat.
The NYPD has also begun a summer enforcement strategy aimed at removing illegal motorized scooters, ATVs, and other bikes from city streets following an increase in shootings, robberies, and grand larcenies involving such vehicles. In all of 2023, the NYPD confiscated 18,430 illegal and unregistered motorized scooters and bikes — the highest number in city history and a 128 percent increase from 2022. So far in 2024, the NYPD has seized more than 13,000 illegal two-wheeled vehicles and ATVs, bringing the total to nearly 42,000 since the start of 2022 — the largest number of illegal motorized vehicles removed during any 30 months in city history.
More than 200 of the illegal vehicles were crushed by bulldozers on Wednesday at the Staten Island Landfill.
“When it comes to protecting public safety, this administration is crushing it and that includes our efforts to crack down on the ongoing issue of illegal mopeds and scooters on our streets and sidewalks,” Mayor Eric Adams said. “Mopeds and scooters are not only endangering pedestrians when they are driven recklessly, but we have also seen an exponential increase in criminals using them to ride around and snatch property from New Yorkers.”
The vehicles were destroyed while a Venezuelan migrant was being arraigned on attempted murder charges for allegedly shooting and injuring two cops out of the 115th Precinct in Jackson Heights after they pulled him over while riding an illegal scooter in East Elmhurst.
“These illegal vehicles have no place in New York City,” NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban said. “These motorbikes are dangerous and reckless, and they put everyone on our streets and sidewalks at risk. On top of that, these bikes have become the vehicle of choice in the commission of robberies and other violent crime patterns across our city.
