Manhattan
A man is in custody for a string of random assaults — including three boxcutter slashings — near Union Square, police said Friday. Derrick McLeod, 24, spent most of Tuesday drinking at a pal’s home before catching the F train at the Jay Street station in Downtown Brooklyn at 12:30 a.m. Wednesday, officials said. Aboard the train, the soused thug slugged a 24-year-old woman in the face without provocation before fleeing into the Broadway-Lafayette station, according to cops. Police said McLeod then switched over to an uptown 6 train, and slashed a 31-year-old male straphanger in the face with a boxcutter just for making eye contact. McLeod dashed off the train at the Union Square station, where he slapped a 20-year-old woman in the face and ran upstairs to the street, cops said. Outside a nearby supermarket, McLeod then demanded $2 from a 46-year-old homeless man. When that victim rebuffed him, McLeod cut him across the face with the boxcutter, authorities said. The crazed goon then demanded a buck from a 59-year-old man waiting for a bus. The man also refused, and McLeod slashed him across the face and ran off, cops said. None of the victims’ injuries was life-threatening. Cops nabbed McLeod, of Brooklyn, on Friday and charged him with assault and weapons possession.
A thief slipped into a management area in a Midtown bar and swiped nearly $3,000 in cash, cops said. The suspect was in BarBacon on Ninth Avenue near West 55th Street at about 11:45 p.m. Tuesday when he got into the off-limits space, opened an unlocked safe and grabbed $2,800, police added. The suspect was described as about 50 years old, 5-foot-6 and 160 pounds.
Brooklyn
Three armed thieves robbed a man at his building mailbox kiosk in Brownsville, police said. The suspects approached the 34-year-old tenant in the building at Sutter Avenue and Tapscott Street, shoved him against a wall and pointed a firearm at him at about 10:30 a.m. on Jan. 28, cops said. They then forced the victim back into his apartment, where they demanded cash and jewelry, authorities said. The thieves snatched the victim’s cellphone, electronics and $100, hailed a black livery cab and fled, according to police.
Cops are asking for the public’s help in finding two suspects in the early-morning robbery of a woman in an East New York home. At about 6:15 a.m. on Nov. 6, the duo smashed glass on the front door of the 25-year-old victim’s residence on Hemlock Street, reached inside and turned the knob to let themselves in, cops said. One of the suspects pulled the victim into a back room, and then the thugs snatched a Rolex, iPhone 5S, iPad, laptop computer and $6,575 in cash, police said. The robbers are believed to be in their 20s.
Ten fare-beaters were hit with summonses after undercover cops observed them walking through an emergency-exit gate to board an F train in Cobble Hill, police said. The straphangers entered the gate in the station at Bergen and Smith streets at about 8:30 a.m. Thursday, cops said. As police handed out summonses carrying $100 fines, several suspects complaining that the MetroCard-activated turnstiles weren’t working, officials said. A sergeant tested the turnstiles, and they appeared to be functional, authorities added.
Queens
A bank bandit who struck three times late last year pulled off a fourth heist in Middle Village this week, cops said. On Nov. 24, the suspect got $750 from a Capital One branch on Metropolitan Avenue. On Dec. 9, he hit the Capital One branch on Forest Avenue and made off with $2,617. On Dec. 30, he fled with $7,400 from the Astoria Bank branch on Metropolitan Avenue. His latest heist yielded $8,300 from an Astoria Bank branch Wednesday. The suspect is believed to be in his early 30s, 5-foot-6 and 190 pounds.