Suspect in series of Riverdale burglaries arrested

Police have arrested a suspect in a recent string of burglaries at the Verizon Wireless store and Subway restaurant on Riverdale Avenue, officers said Monday.

The 27-year-old suspect from Yonkers was arrested in the predawn hours of Sept. 10, after burglarizing the two businesses within blocks from each other. 

The man is also suspected of burglarizing the same two stores in early August, and hitting the Verizon store on Sept. 5, police said. 

The privately owned franchises were likely targeted because they do not have storefront shutters, said Deputy Inspector Terence O’Toole, the commanding officer of the 50th precinct. 

“They don’t want to put the gate down,” he said on Sept. 8. “It’s an attractive place and it isn’t being protected properly.”

The first in the string of troubles the store has faced occurred on June 28, when according to security video footage, five men broke into the store and dragged out a safe, which they then left in the middle of the street. 

Police arrested five men in connection with that crime and, on Aug. 4, told The Press the suspects were part of a larger group of burglars who had travelled around the city burglarizing stores. 

Since then, though, Capt. O’Toole said he believes the same person has burglarized the Verizon three times, each time smashing the window with a rock, taking as many items as he could carry, and fleeing the scene.

“We think he is from Yonkers but he disappeared for two weeks so we thought he was gone,” he said before the suspect’s arrest. “He is not a professional burglar he is an opportunist.”

Freddy Gomez, a manager at the Verizon retailer, said the store hasn’t gotten a pull-down shutter because of “internal issues.”

“We are probably going to put up more security measures up because everyone else has gates and just we don’t,” he said on Sept. 12. “It’s just being pushed back, but it’s all going to be good.”

Capt. O’Toole said the issues stem from conflict between the franchise owner and Verizon over who should pay for the gate, the lack of which makes the store an easy and attractive target for burglars.

“It’s an easy mark, you know, it’s an easy mark. I have a surveillance van up there half the time and I still can’t find him,” he said. “What can you do?”

Mr. Gomez agreed that the absence of increased security measures made his store more attractive for burglars, but he maintained the store was still secure.

“We are too hopeful for the neighborhood, I guess, but we’ve got to face reality,” he said. “Our neighborhood is great, our customers are great, we don’t feel any type of way about this.”

Mr. Gomez attributed the store’s recent string of burglaries to just bad luck in a big city.

“We don’t think anyone is targeting us, we just think it happens—it’s still the Bronx, it’s still New York City,” he said. “We just have a highly populated area and people are just bound to do some break-ins here and there, that’s all.”