Metro

Crime lower in 84th Precinct

Attention, Brooklyn Heights shoppers: take your purse with you when entering a store.

That seemingly intuitive advice is courtesy of Captain Mark DiPaolo, commanding officer of the 84th Precinct, who last week said the precinct has been seeing a preventable bump in grand larcenies in the Montague Street/Court Street/Fulton Mall area.

“A lot of what we see are women with baby carriages put their purse on the top of the carriage, go into a store, and then [emerge to discover] their purse gone,” he said.

Auxiliary cops would be dispatched to the area to urge store owners to place signs in their shops urging customers to guard their possessions, he said.

Police data shows that over the past 28 days, grand larceny has climbed 13 percent, with 52 incidents compared to 46 in 2008. The past month has also seen an uptrend in robberies, with 19 reported compared to 16 in 2008, an 18.8 percent pop.

Overall crime in the 84th Precinct is down close to 18 percent for the year, the top cop announced last week.

“That’s a pretty significant number,” DiPaolo told the 84th Precinct Community Council’s at its Sept. 15 meeting.

As of Sept. 13, the precinct, which encompasses Brooklyn Heights, Boerum Hill, Vinegar Hill and DUMBO, has seen its burglaries fall 13.7 percent compared to 2008; robberies slide 33.1 percent; assaults drop 15.2 percent; and grand larcenies down 13.7 percent, police statistics shows. Car thefts are flat, with 40 incident reported both years.

No murders have yet been reported in the precinct. But three rapes have been reported, compared to just one for the same period a year ago, a 200 percent climb. DiPaolo said that all three are “not of the stranger type” meaning the victims knew their attacker. Two of the cases have resulted in arrests, he noted.

Overall, there have been 646 incidents reported this year compared to 787 in 2008, police statistics show. Compared to 2007, crime in the precinct is down 27.7 percent, the police data reveals.