By Maria Rocha-Buschel
Police arrested a man this past Monday who is suspected of snatching unattended bags from the Starbucks at 10 Union Square East, which police say has been a hotbed of thefts for the last few months. The precinct’s commanding officer, Deputy Inspector Steven Hellman, said at last week’s Community Council meeting that the precinct has especially been struggling with thefts from the chain throughout the city because the company has been reluctant to provide surveillance video.
“One of the main ways we can catch these guys is with video and Starbucks has not been very cooperative,” Hellman said. “We’ve followed up with subpoenas and we’ve still never been able to retrieve a single video from them.”
Starbucks did not return a request for comment by T&V’s press time.
Despite the lack of cooperation from the coffee chain, the man who was arrested, 60-year-old Prince Wright, was picked up inside the Starbucks location at 25 Union Square West this past Monday by officers who recognized him from a photo. Police connected him to two grand larcenies at the 10 Union Square East location on March 2 and 12, as well as thefts from two more at Starbucks locations in the Midtown South precinct.