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The city’s thugs have a new favorite to go with their stolen iPhones — stolen Dr. Dre headphones.
The legendary rapper’s pricey, high-tech headphones, called Beats by Dr. Dre, are the new rage among bandits because they’re seen as “status symbols,” a police source said.
Although they have yet to dethrone the iPhone as thieves’ top target, the headphones — which retail for $300 to $500 — are being snatched from kids at an alarming rate since the latest model hit the market at around Christmas.
“They’re very hot among thieves,” the source said. “It’s like, ‘I see it. I want it. I can have it. I’m taking it for me, or my sister needs a pair,’ ” the source said, adding that crooks also resell them.
The perps are beating up youths, threatening them, and, in some cases, brandishing weapons.
Uptown Manhattan and northern parts of Brooklyn have been hit hard.
In Brooklyn North alone — which includes Williamsburg — there have been dozens of Beats heists over the past four months.
“They’re being snatched from teenagers aboard subways or as they walk to and from school,” according to the source.
The thefts are going on even in trendy Brooklyn Heights, where a goon demanded a pair from a teenager after barking, “Give me your Beats!” on April 17. After the victim turned them over, he was punched in the face.
Thefts of the headphones are underreported because they are rarely insured and can’t be traced.
Some victims are so engrossed in their music that they’re unaware of their surroundings.
“People’s heads are buried in them,” one source said. “They don’t even know what’s going on.”
This past March, a Bonnie-and-Clyde team accosted a 14-year-old boy zoning out on music near Columbia University, ripped a pair of Beats off his head, and danced away with them.
A video posted on WorldStarHipHop.com shows a thief jumping to the subway tracks at Burnside Avenue in The Bronx, then climbing back up to the platform and using a broken bottle to slash his victim’s neck. (See NYPost.com.)
“If you are wearing those headphones, you might as well wear a sign that says, ‘Come and rob me,’ ’’ one investigator said.
Additional reporting by Larry Celona