Village Sun contributor Harry Pincus captured a “Corona incident” across from his loft in Soho late Saturday afternoon.
Apparently, a CitiBike-riding thief was not “distancing” from a case of Corona beer left on the sidewalk — just the opposite, he was trying to swipe it.
There was a heavy police response, with 12 officers arriving at the scene in five patrol cars.
As Pincus relates: “This was outside of the CVS on the corner of Spring St. and Sixth Ave. This guy must have been stealing the Corona beer, because I saw workers in masks from the CVS coming out of the store and yelling at someone just before the arrest.
“From the look of it, he was pilfering the beer which was lying on the street beside a CitiBike.
“Soon there was a phalanx of police cars and this gentleman was being arrested.
“Perhaps he was going to flee on the CitiBike, because it appears to be just lying there. You’d have to get the police blotter report to know for sure, but they put him in the police car and drove away.”
I live in SoHo, and I can personally attest to a big spike in petty crime down here. Depending on your definition of petty, of course. Graffiti vandalism is way up, and minor assault by homeless who are hanging out downtown begging for money. But with no tourists around it’s very odd.
Fact:
“More than 1,500 NYC inmates have been released during coronavirus crisis”
https://nypost.com/2020/04/10/more-than-1500-nyc-inmates-have-been-released-amid-coronavirus-crisis/
That location is just a couple of short blocks north of where NYPD regularly congregate on Sixth Avenue. It’s near the First Precinct where many police cars are parked as well.
That’s very likely why they came so quickly, they could hear the shouts, and came running.
Normally to get the NYPD to come from a 911 all takes at least 20 unites, and why culprits are rarely ever ‘caught in the act’.
The awful truth is, the police don’t prevent crime, they mostly just report it after the fact. This episode was an anomaly.
You will notice out of the 8 cops in the pix only two were wearing masks. and almost none were practicing ‘social distancing’. That is the same proportion that I have witnessed as I passed the 9th Precinct over the past 4 weeks. With at least 20% of cops out sick, you’d think they could get over their macho and protect themselves, their families, fellow workers not to mention the public and arrestees.
I don’t know how the Mayor expects to have cops enforce social distancing and face covering, if they can’t do it themselves.