Morningside Heights Mugger Is a Brand Snob


Personal taste preferences are important, even to criminals. One mugger in Morningside Heights, who targets Columbia students, has acquired a reputation for a particularly refined eye. He only steals iPhones. In fact, if he happens to mug you and you're carrying a BlackBerry (technology for which there's far less resale demand), he'll return it in disgust and move on to attack someone else," DNAinfo reports.

In one incident, the suspect followed a student into the lobby of a brownstone on West 114th Street between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue on Nov. 15, pulled a gun and demanded the student's iPhone.

The frightened student immediately took out his phone and handed it over. But it was a BlackBerry.

The thief looked at it and immediately handed it back.

"I want iPhones," he snarled, according to a source.

BlackBerry as a security accessory, sold in a package deal with rape whistles: We can see the re-branding campaign now.