Robberies are getting so bad in Park Slope that the 78th Precinct’s top cop may have to get back on the street himself.
A permanent demotion is certainly in order after the events of April 21, when Deputy Inspector John Argenziano nailed three young perps who robbed victims in separate incidents, one in the vicinity of Fourth Avenue and Nevins Street, in the neighboring 84th Precinct, and another closer to home in Park Slope, where the terrible trio snatched a cellphone.
“Who happened to working that night? Me,” boasted Argenziano, who recently celebrated his third anniversary as the precinct’s commanding officer.
Argenziano’s street smarts played a role, but in the end, it was the fashion sense of one of the suspects that doomed the trio.
“The description came over the radio that one of them was wearing a purple shirt and a purple hat,” Argenziano said.
The ostentatious color combination made identifying the suspects easy, he continued.
“We see three guys walking down the block, and one of them looked like Barney,” he recalled, a reference to the anthropomorphic purple dinosaur that is beloved by children and hated by their parents.
The trio — two 15-year-olds and a 17-year-old with prior robbery collars — was arrested without incident.
That was the good news. The bad news is that robberies are up 18.2 percent this year in the precinct, which covers Park Slope. There have been 39 incidents reported through April 18 this year compared to 33 for the same period last year.
Overall, reported crime is down about one percent, police records show.