In the Youtube video shown above, which was apparently taken in May of 2010, thieves make quick work of a complete set of car wheels on 73rd Street.
More recently, two different Bay Ridge drivers returned to their parked cars only to find them sans wheels during the last week of July – as car rim and tire thefts continue to pose a major headache for car owners in Southwestern Brooklyn and beyond.
According to Brooklyn Daily’s Will Bredderman, who writes about both incidents in this week’s police blotter, one crime occurred on Shore Road sometime on or before July 26, with a second happening on Bay Ridge Parkway on July 26.
From Brooklyn Daily:
The [Shore Road] victim said that he left his car between 93rd and 94th streets at 11 am on Tuesday, and came back on Thursday to find that a fiend had swiped his wheels, tires and all….
…The [Bay Ridge Parkway] victim told police that she parked her car between Third and Fourth avenues at 10:30 pm — and when she came back out at 6:30 am the next day, the vehicle was up on cinder blocks and its wheels were gone.
Police have seen a resurgence of car wheel thefts in recent years, as anonymous online sales have created a marketplace for the stolen parts.
“It’s a crime we haven’t seen much of since the ’80s,” City Councilman Peter F. Vallone Jr. told the New York Times in June. “And it unfortunately, I believe, is a harbinger of a return of crimes we thought were in our past.”