News From My Hood

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Hey, what's happening to my neighborhood? First, all the little mom-and-pop stores where forced out by high rents and replaced by chain stores and banks and now, we have bank robberies almost every week. Oh, how I hate the "New and Improved" Brooklyn. It is starting to be too much like Manhattan. There was a reason why we moved here intead of across the East River ( yeah, I know, we could not have afforded Manhattan anyway 20 years ago, but that is not the point.) I just want my little quiet neighborhood back. And where are the neighborhood wise guys anyway? Have they all left for New Jersey or Florida?

New York Times March 23, 2007
In 4th Case in 2 Weeks, a Bank Robber Says He Has Explosives

By JENNIFER 8. LEE
Police helicopters whirred overhead yesterday in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, and the police were out in force searching for a man who had made threats with an explosive device.
But still, basketball scrimmages continued unabated and mothers with strollers, pet owners and amateur musicians chatted amicably on the street corner. Throughout the neighborhood’s leafless tree-line streets, there was a palpable lack of fear mixed with gratitude for a warm spring day.
Down the block, police officers in Hazmat suits were searching a trash can near a Citibank branch at 375 Court Street. Earlier, at about 3:20 p.m., a man with a box he said was filled with explosives had demanded money from a teller at the bank and then fled, the police said.
One witness said he saw the robber fleeing in a black and yellow jacket. “I was standing in front of my house, and he ran right by me,” said the man, a technical writer who declined to give his name last night because the robber was still at large. “I saw him running down the street, and then he stopped in front of the trash can and he took the jacket off over his head,” he said. “After he switched jackets, he stopped running and walked away at a brisk pace.”
The witness added: “I kind of regretted not doing something. You see a guy running down the street taking his jacket off, and you know something is up.“
The box was found and the police later determined that it was harmless — there were no explosives inside.
The same method was used in three robberies in Brooklyn Heights over the last two weeks. In each case, a man walked into a bank, claimed to have a box filled with explosives, demanded money and fled. In each case, the boxes were found to be harmless.
The police have recovered some videotape and released still images of the suspect in seeking the public’s help in capturing the man, who is described as a clean-shaven white man in his late 30s or early 40s with a slim 6-foot build.
The first robbery occurred on March 9 at 1:40 p.m. at the Chase bank at 177 Montague Street, the police said. The second was on March 12 at 5:50 p.m. at the Chase bank at 101 Court Street, and the third on March 17 at 3:40 p.m. at the Commerce bank branch at 211 Montague Street.
Anthony Troiano, who works at the nearby Carroll Court Cards & Gifts, shrugged yesterday’s robbery off as one of a number in the neighborhood over the last few months.
He has come to regard bank robberies as generally nonviolent crimes, Mr. Troiano said. “When someone robs a bank, you know they’re just going to get the money,” he said. “They’re not going to do anything off the wall.”
Al Baker and David K. Randall contributed reporting.