Police are trying to track down a serial thief who has been taking shoes from women’s feet in New York City.
The New York Police Department say the suspect is believed to have struck at least three times since the beginning of the year, with the first incident taking place on 24 January at about 9am. He had followed a 24-year-old woman into a mixed commercial and residential building in East Flatbush, Brooklyn, before removing her right shoe and taking off with it.
Just a couple of weeks later, he then targeted another victim on 9 February at about 11.05am. They were going up the street staircase at the Grand Army subway station in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, when the suspect took a Nike trainer off the woman’s left foot.
Thankfully, the 24-year-old woman did not suffer any injuries, but the man managed to get away by running into the train station and jumping the turnstile, fleeing onto a train.
The victim told police that there had been no interaction with the suspect before he snatched the shoe, valued at $40.
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The third incident came on 24 May at 12.15pm, when he removed the left shoe of a woman – who was also 24 – inside the Rego Center shopping plaza at 96-05 Queens Boulevard in Rego Park, Queens.
They are now asking anyone with information to call the NYPD's Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) - or, for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782).
They can also submit tips by logging onto the Crime Stoppers website or reaching out via Twitter @NYPDTips.
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Meanwhile, the state of New York has passed a bill to raise the minimum age to buy or possess a semi-automatic rifle to 21, as part of a number of larger package of measures designed to tighten state gun laws.
The state already requires people to be 21 to own a handgun, but while anyone younger would still be allowed to possess other types of rifles and shotguns under the new law, they would be unable to buy fast-firing rifles like the ones recently used by teen gunmen in Buffalo and Texas.
The bill passed the Senate along party lines, 43-20, and in the Assembly 102-47. It will now head to the desk of Governor Kathy Hochul for her signature.
State lawmakers also passed a bill that would ban people from buying bullet-resistant vests - as worn by the Buffalo shooter - unless they worked in specific professions such as law enforcement.
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Other measures include: a requirement for new guns to be equipped with microstamp technology, allowing law enforcement to link weapons to fired bullets more easily; a requirement for anyone hoping to buy a semi-automatic rifle to obtain a license; and a requirement for all state and local law enforcement agencies to submit gun crime information to a number of national agencies.
Jess Hardiman