A man attending a theft prevention training session on Jan. 15 at a building operated by a religious organization in the 700 block of LaSalle Street had $150 stolen from him by a man posing as a member of that organization.

Upon arriving at the building in the afternoon, a 20-year-old male was approached by an unknown man outside, according to the police report.

The offender told the victim he was collecting a $150 fee for the program. The victim retrieved the money from his mother, who had driven him there, and handed it over to the offender. The offender had the victim sign some papers on a clipboard and told him to wait in the car while he went inside.

The offender then walked away and the victim went into the class, where he was told that they didn’t have anyone outside collecting money.

The owner of Sammy’s Red Hots, a popular hotdog stand on the 200 block of West Division Street, told police that the establishment had been burglarized at 2:39 a.m. on Jan. 11.

An employee opened up the shop the following morning to find that $4,000 had been stolen from an unlocked safe and a desk in the back office. The owner said that the burglary had been recorded by a security camera on the premises and he intended to provide detectives with a copy of the footage.

Another week, another string of iPhone-related robberies.

At 9:15 p.m. on Jan. 17, a man grabbed an iPhone from a woman waiting under a heat lamp at a CTA train stop. A few hours earlier, another woman on a Red Line train managed to thwart the attempts of an unknown man as he tried to swipe her iPhone.

A woman tussled unsuccessfully with a man who took her iPhone and ran into the Red Line station at Chicago and State on the afternoon of Jan. 15.

And, on the morning of Jan. 14, police arrested a 17-year-old boy after being indentified by a woman who said that he had tackled her and tried to take her iPhone in the 1300 block of North Webster.

A Buffalo Grove woman was the victim of a violent mugging at 7 p.m. on Jan. 13. The woman, 22, was walking south in the 2100 block of North Magnolia when a man wearing a gray skullcap and a gray puffy coat approached her, produced a handgun and stated, “This is a stick up.”

The offender put his hand on the victim’s shoulder and they continued to walk as he threatened to shoot her in the face if she did not hand over her purse. He then struck her over the head, took the wallet from her purse and fled with an accomplice, who was waiting in a nearby silver sports car.

The victim was treated at Illinois Masonic for a wound above her left eye.

A 37-year-old Maywood man was arrested on the afternoon of Jan. 14 for allegedly attacking a Traffic Management Authority employee who wrote him a parking ticket.

The victim, a 42-year-old woman, was treated for blunt trauma at Northwestern Memorial Hospital after she was hit repeatedly in the face by Perryman Hasan, who allegedly attacked her during an argument over the parking ticket. The incident occurred in the 100 block of West Grand.

A taxi driver saying his prayers before lunch was interrupted when a man smashed the passenger window of his cab with a rock. The 68-year-old driver said that the unknown offender, who was wearing a black jacket and believed to be between 16 and 20 years old, made off with a briefcase valued at $40. The incident occurred on the afternoon of Jan. 16 in the 900 block of North Orleans.