RED HOOK — Safe Zone residence who receive food assistance will be joining other residents in what will undoubtedly be longer food market lines this morning. On Friday night (March 2nd), Safe Zone Cooperative Citizen's Watch members discovered the Red Hook Market's food reserves barren after a brazen theft by what is alleged to be an SLC-Expressive crime ring.
At present the Safe Zone had been utilizing the Cooperative's food reserve to bolster its own food services to emergency shelters, soup kitchens, and other public food services across the city after the robbery of the Red Cross food reserve last month.
This is the second straight theft of massive food reserves in the Safe Zone in two months, and authorities at SESA have confirmed they are treating the investigation as an SLC-E crime due to the specifics of the robberies.
SZC Community Watch member Mira Sadowsky told the Tribune that "we keep that room locked unless we're taking a delivery or sending food to another market. There's two entrances and both were locked. We're obviously dealing with an SLC-E thief, but we don't know why it's happening. My money is on a gang from Staten Island causing trouble for us all."
In the wake of these high-profile thefts, local merchants in Brighton Bay's harbor district came forward to report sightings of an SLC-E thief robbing kiosks during broad daylight hours. Reports of a teenaged female thief capable of teleportation was confirmed by several Safe Zone marketplaces. SESA says it is "pursuing all leads" but did not provide further comment at the time of this publication.