NYPD Reports Burglary Spike in Sandy-Affected Areas

The NYPD has seen a surge in burglaries near Hurricane Sandy-affected areas of the city in the month after the storm hit, and cops have stepped up their patrols, according to the New York Daily News.

Police “extended tours, patrolled with turret lights on at all times, and acquired hundreds of light towers and deployed them in places still without electricity,” Paul Browne, spokesman for the NYPD, told the paper.

And while nearly all coastal areas battered by the storm saw a rise in robberies, the 100th Precinct, which covers the Rockaways and Breezy Point, had the largest spike, according to NYPD data.

The Daily News reported that the area had 56 thefts in a 28-day span ending this past Sunday, which is a 1,020 percent jump from the five burglaries reported during the same period last year.

Other areas hit hard were: Coney Island’s 60th Precinct, which reported a 171.4 percent spike in burglaries, and a 21.7 percent rise in the three police precincts in Staten Island.

According to Browne, one of the reasons for the spike in crime is that people weren’t able to quickly report burglaries.

“Victims (are) reporting burglaries only after discovering them upon their return to residences they had evacuated during the storm,” Browne told the Daily News.

At Monday's Community Board 11 meeting, a 111th Precinct spokesman told board members that northeast Queens had also seen a spike in burglaries in recent weeks.