Teen robberies fueling Cent. Park crime spike

Crime in Central Park shot up 33 percent last year compared to 2018 — due in part to a series of robberies committed by teens, NYPD data shows.

Total major crimes in the green space rose from 52 in 2018 to 69 in 2019, police said.

And robberies were up from 15 to 21 in the same period, with five of them allegedly committed by teens in the park’s northwestern section — not far from Harlem’s Morningside Park, where in December Barnard College student Tessa Majors was killed in a botched robbery allegedly by teenagers.

Roughly 80 percent of the 21 robberies recorded in 2019 occurred on secluded, dimly lit paths, police said.

In one incident, near 62nd Street and West Drive in Central Park, a 68-year-old man was assaulted and robbed by four to five teens at around 5 p.m. on Aug. 7, according to police.

The teenagers got away with $250 and the man’s identification.

In another instance, a group of teens riding bikes and skateboards knocked a 33-year-old man off his e-bike on East Drive, stealing his ride and his cellphone at around 11:15 p.m. on April 13, cops said.

Central Park Precinct’s commanding officer, Deputy Inspector Naoki Yaguchi, called the rise in teenage crime “disturbing” during a precinct community council meeting last week, according to The West Side Rag.

Last year saw the highest amount of robberies since 2016, when 23 were recorded, NYPD data shows.

Grand larcenies in the park also rose from 28 in 2018 to 37 in 2019, while murders, burglaries and car thefts ticked up from 0 to 1 each over the same period, data shows.

Rapes, however, were down over the time period from 3 to 1.

The NYPD said it has beefed up its presence in the park’s northwestern section to address the robberies and in the green space’s southern reaches to keep crime from spreading there.

The Tessa Majors case remains largely unsolved, with only 13year-old suspect Zyairr Davis in custody. A 14-year-old was also taken into custody and released, and cops are waiting for the results of a DNA test on another 14year-old who Davis claimed was Majors’ killer.