Police recorded a number of seemingly linked home break-ins in the West Lincoln Park area last week. On the morning of April 18, police responding to a burglar alarm call at a building in the 1600 block of North Dayton Street found that the second floor rear door of the unit had been kicked in. A tenant in the building told the officers that they had seen a gray van leaving the alleyway next to the building after the alarm sounded. Upon searching the building, officers found that the rear door of another apartment had also been kicked in. The owner of that unit was out of town during the incident. There appeared to be nothing missing from either of the apartments.

On the same morning, a woman in the 2000 block of North Magnolia Avenue told police that her back door had also been kicked in and that the offenders had taken a flat-screen TV, a computer and a digital camera.

Five similar forced-entry burglaries were also reported in the area and on the Near North Side that morning; in three of these instances, the victims stated that the doors to their garages had been kicked in.

An employee at Bye Bye Chicago, a souvenir shop at 11 E. Ohio Street, told police that a man who had robbed the establishment once before struck again on April 13.

The offender, who is believed to be in his mid-twenties, entered the store at around 2:00 p.m. that day and threatened to shoot (though he did not appear to have a gun) if the employee did not hand over the money from the store’s register.

The victim gave the man $180 in cash and called police after the man fled the store. The same offender had reportedly held up the store on February 14. A security camera recording of the incident was sent to Area 3 detectives.

On the evening of April 14, a man approached two students on the DuSable Bridge on Michigan Avenue over the Chicago River and asked them for a cigarette. When they declined, the man kneeled down and began cleaning the shoes of one of the students, an 18-year-old woman from Des Plaines. “It will cost you six dollars a shoe,” the man said.

When the victims refused to pay him, the man rose and threatened them, stating “I don’t get on my knees for no one! I need my money! When people don’t pay me I get angry and stick people in the mouth!” according to the victims’ accounts in the police report. The man then grabbed the woman by the shoulder and walked her to an ATM at a nearby Walgreens, where she withdrew $12. The man took the money and then walked away.

A 29-year-old man was exiting his car in the 300 block of West Wisconsin Street when an unknown offender approached him from behind, put a blue steel handgun to his waist and said “Give me everything you’ve got and empty your pockets.”

The victim handed over $100 in cash, an iPhone and the keys to his car, a white 2001 Daewoo. The offender, a man wearing a black leather jacket and believed to be in his mid-thirties, then got in the car and drove away. The incident occurred just after midnight on April 17.

A woman was using her iPhone while sitting on a CTA Purple Line train the evening of April 18 when an unknown male suspect snatched the device from her hands and fled the car at the Sedgwick stop. Two witnesses reported that they saw the man run out of the station and proceed southbound down North Hudson Avenue.