A 79-year-old woman was sitting behind the wheel of her car near Manhattan Avenue and West 113th Street on Friday, October 2, when someone riding a bicycle rolled up, grabbed two necklaces off her neck and pedaled away. No injuries were reported in the encounter, which happened at around 2:46 p.m.
The account comes from a wanted post issued by NYPD Crime Stoppers
, which says the unidentified individual approached the woman while she sat in the driver's seat before taking the jewelry without permission and fleeing the scene by bicycle to parts unknown.
NYPD Crime Stoppers is treating the case as a grand larceny and is asking anyone with information to come forward. Tips can be submitted anonymously, and the program offers rewards of up to $3,500 for information that leads to an arrest and indictment, according to the police department's own description of the Crime Stoppers initiative.
Part of a Broader Pattern on Two Wheels
The theft lands amid a run of similar snatch-and-grab robberies across the city involving bicycles, e-bikes, scooters and mopeds. In Queens, a robbery pattern spanning the 103rd, 107th and 113th precincts has grown to five reported incidents, several of which involved suspects forcibly removing necklaces or chains from victims' necks, as reported by FOX 5 New York.
Those Queens cases include an April 17 incident in which a 22-year-old woman near 164-14 Jamaica Avenue had her necklace snatched by someone on a bicycle without injury, and a May 12 attack in which a 69-year-old man near 122 Avenue and Long Street was forcibly relieved of his necklace and fell to the ground, sustaining minor injuries. In a separate April 14 incident, two people on a bicycle allegedly pushed a 59-year-old man down, breaking his left ankle, before taking his cellphone and about $22, the outlet's report notes.
Manhattan has seen its own string of similar robberies. On August 5, two suspects on a motorized scooter allegedly took a necklace from a 64-year-old woman near West 65th Street and West End Avenue and pushed her to the ground, according to 1010 WINS. On September 7, 2024, two suspects on an electric bicycle snatched a necklace from a woman near West 47th Street and Eighth Avenue, per the same report.
Police Track Broader Rise in E-Bike and Scooter Robberies
Those incidents are part of what police describe as a group of thieves connected to a string of robberies carried out on scooters or e-bikes on the Upper West Side and elsewhere in Manhattan, according to ABC7 New York. The NYPD had logged 452 robberies involving e-bikes and scooters as of August, a 33% increase over the prior year and a 72% jump from 2022, the station reported.
Hoodline has previously reported on a scooter trio tied to 26 robberies across the Bronx and Manhattan between June 29 and August 28. Citywide, NYPD CompStat data showed 8,863 robbery complaints from January 1 through August 30 this year, a 12% decrease from the 10,068 reported over the same period in 2025, even as officers seized more than 5,700 unregistered motorized two-wheelers through May, a roughly 10% increase from the prior year.
How to Submit a Tip
Anyone with information about the October 2 incident near Manhattan Avenue and West 113th Street is asked to contact NYPD Crime Stoppers through its tip line or by messaging the department's account on X, @NYPDTips. Tips can also be submitted online through the Crime Stoppers website, as FOX 5 New York noted in its coverage of the related Queens pattern.
