Children as young as 8 are reportedly being used by adults to steal money from unattended bags or from the open safes of businesses in New York City.
The crime wave began about eight months ago, the New York Post reported, when two children took what they could from unattended bags at the Amsterdam Ale House on West 76th Street on the Upper West Side. In February, Ale House manager Wendy Kaufman said the same two children grabbed food off a table, pushed a customer, and wielded a table knife.
"I watched a kid take a wing off someone's plate and eat it," Kaufman told the Post. "I went to escort him out and he cursed at me. The 8-year-old turned around and said to me, 'I don’t have to do anything you say, fat lady' and punched me in the stomach. He ran into the back of the restaurant, stole a child's toy. Then grabbed a knife off the table and wielded it like a weapon. They shoved a guest."
In many cases, the children try to solicit money for their "basketball team," and in several incidents, adults were seen waiting for the children outside the businesses, the Post reported.
"When they go out, there's either a man or a woman waiting for them and directing," Jacob Rabinowitz, who owns several drinking establishments in the city, told the Post. "These are little kids — this is child abuse!"
On Aug. 13, the Post reported police said a child allegedly stole $600 from an open safe at The Upside Bar on Amsterdam and West 89th Street on the upper west side.
Bar owner Stephanie Slone, 40, said she had seen the boy, who told staff members he was 8, with an older child and they always asked for donations to their basketball team, offering few specifics.
Slone told the Post that "it was just the youngest one" on the night of the theft. Surveillance footage obtained by the Post showed the child waited until the bartender went to the bathroom to walk downstairs to the office.
"You can kind of see him looking in each area and doorway and then he notices the office, gets in the office," Slone said.
Slone told the Post the bar is now discussing banning children who aren't accompanied by an adult.
"The parents are obviously making them do that and have taught them what to do ... it's sad," she said.
At 8:30 p.m. Monday, the Post reported a child allegedly stole about $700 in petty cash from a safe at the Lexington Publick bar on Lexington Avenue and East 97th Street.
"The kid goes over, he opens the bathroom door, looks behind him to make sure no one's looking, and then he closes the bathroom door audibly, so that it sounds like he went in the bathroom," the bar's owner, who asked to remain anonymous, told the Post after reviewing surveillance video.
"And then he just slipped right down into the office downstairs."
Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
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