Friday, November 2, 2012

Thieves Pose as Con Ed Workers (NY)



http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/looters_swipe_up_the_mess_in_chaos_D9SbBRGiVvEVZzEI4AIxaN

New York Post
31 October 2012


By REBECCA HARSHBARGER, FRANK ROSARIO and JOSH SAUL

Hurricane Sandy brought out the worst yesterday in some sleazy New Yorkers, who looted stores and homes across the city.

Some posed as Con Ed workers to dupe their victims.

Police arrested more than a dozen looters in the Rockaways and Coney Island, which had been evacuated, and stood guard outside ravaged stores at the South Street Seaport.

“This morning when they told us the water receded, I walked back to the house to feed [my pets],” said Eric Martine, 33, a cabby who lives in Brooklyn’s Gerritsen Beach. “Guys were looting, pretending they were Con Ed and holding people up. It was sick.”

Residents said police warned them to beware of crooks pretending to be utility workers. [...]

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2012/11/where-rumor-thieves-dressed-con-ed-workers-came/58610/

The Atlantic Wire
2 November 2012


Rebecca Greenfield

There is zero real evidence that anyone has dressed up as a Con Ed worker and gone door-to-door robbing people, yet the tales of such incidents are cropping up so frequently in media, on social networks, and old fashioned in person, that even Con Ed is warning people to ask its workers for ID. [...]