Police from the 110th Precinct in Elmhurst are looking for a suspect who targeted women at or near the Queens Center Mall on two occasions in two days, snatching their pricey MacBook devices.
The latest incident occurred on the evening of Wednesday, July 10, as a 57-year-old woman was in a vehicle at 56th Avenue and 90th Street near Justice Avenue alongside the Newtown High School Athletic Field just before 6 p.m., when a stranger opened her passenger door and snatched two MacBook Pro laptops from the passenger side seat before running off eastbound on 56th Avenue toward Junction Boulevard, police said, adding that the woman was not injured during the incident. MacBook Pro laptops are valued at around $2,500.
Two days earlier, a 56-year-old woman was waiting for a bus near the main entrance of the Queens Center Mall at 90-14 Queens Blvd. in Elmhurst just after 9 p.m., when the same man walked up to her and forcefully grabbed her MacBook Air laptop from under her left arm, police said. The robber ran off northbound on Queens Boulevard toward Broadway with her computer, valued at around $1,300. The victim experienced pain in her left arm after the perpetrator yanked at her device and she refused medical attention at the crime scene.
The NYPD released surveillance images of the suspect on Wednesday and described him as having a dark complexion with an afro hairstyle. During one of the robberies he wore a black hooded sweatshirt, black sweatpants with white stripes down the legs and white and black sneakers. In the other incident, the MacBook crook was wearing a gray Wolf Pack Hockey shirt, gray sweatpants and the same white and black sneakers. In each of the photos, the suspect is seen passing through subway turnstiles, but the stations were not identified by the NYPD.
A reward of up to $3,500 is being offered for information that leads to his arrest.
Anyone with information regarding this investigation 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 July 28, the 110th Precinct has reported 297 robberies so far in 2024, 65 more than the 232 reported at the same point last year, an increase of 28%, according to the most recent CompStat report.
