MANHATTAN
Cops are looking for a trio of thugs who have robbed eight businesses across the borough since April, authorities said.
The bandits first struck in the Gramercy Park area on April 14, stealing several laptop computers.
Over the next three months they stole electronics from seven other businesses, in Gramercy Park, Midtown and Greenwich Village.
Detectives are asking for the public’s assistance in apprehending the gunman who is wanted for holding up an Upper East Side bank.
At 5:30 p.m. on Aug. 28, the thief walked into a North Fork branch on Third Avenue near 69th Street, pulled a silver semiautomatic handgun and demanded money from two tellers, police said.
He fled on foot after receiving an undisclosed amount of cash.
Cops said the bandit is in his 40s, stands about 6-foot-1 and weighs about 175 pounds.
He is bald and sports a salt-and-pepper beard.
He was wearing glasses and black clothes.
Cops are investigating the death of a British tourist whose body was discovered in his Midtown hotel room.
The 54-year-old man, whose name was not released, was found lying face-down next to his bed at the New Yorker Hotel on Eighth Avenue at 36th Street at 1 p.m. Tuesday, police said.
The man, visiting from Wales, checked in SaturDay, and later asked the staff to summon an ambulance because he said he had suffered an unspecified head injury, authorities said.
He was taken to St. Vincent’s Hospital, where he was treated and released, the sources said.
Hotel employees later checked in on him and found him dead.
A spokeswoman for the Medial Examiner’s Office said an autopsy will be conducted to determine the man’s cause of death.
A man was nabbed for assault after he decked the manager of a TriBeCa nightspot and struck a bouncer, police sources said yesterday.
Eric Handy, 22, elbowed the bouncer and punched the manager while being escorted out of the Knitting Factory on Leonard Street at 10 p.m. Tuesday for disorderly behavior, the sources said.
He was charged with misdemeanor assault and was issued a police desk-appearance ticket, authorities said.
A Parks Department spokeswoman said Handy had been in the urban-park-ranger academy for the past three months, but he now has been suspended.
BROOKLYN
An off-duty cop was arrested after a violent argument with his son in their East New York home early yesterday, authorities said.
Officer Edgardo Ortiz, 46, assigned to the 115th Precinct in Queens, scratched his 22-year-old son during a confrontation at 12:30 a.m., police said.
Two brothers were injured, one critically, in a drive-by shooting outside a Midwood restaurant early yesterday, police said.
A 21-year-old man and his 24-year-old brother who celebrated his birthday yesterday were shot in front of the 4D’s International Restaurant on Flatbush Avenue near Avenue L at 4:15 a.m., authorities said.
Police responding to the shooting found the 21-year-old with a gunshot wound in his buttocks and the 24-year-old with neck wound.
The men were taken to Kings County Hospital, where the older brother was in critical condition.
According to authorities, the gunmen were riding in a dark colored car and fired multiple rounds at the victims.
STATEN ISLAND
An off-duty city cop was collared for drunken driving in West Brighton early yesterday, authorities said.
Officer Richard Reebe, 27, allegedly struck a parked construction vehicle with a 2002 Honda Accord at the intersection of Forest Avenue and Manor Road at 4 a.m., cops said.
Reebe, assigned to the 122nd Precinct, refused to take a Breathalyzer test, law-enforcement sources said.
He was charged with DWI and leaving the scene of an accident, the sources said.
A New Dorp woman stole her friend’s wallet and used the pal’s credit card to buy cigarettes and gasoline, police said.
Debra Montello, 23, allegedly swiped the purse while the victim was visiting her East Broadway home on Aug. 10.
Montello – who admitted spending $700 of her friend’s money and using her credit cards – was seen on surveillance video using the woman’s Capital One credit card at an Exxon station, law-enforcement sources said.
She was arrested at 1 p.m. Tuesday, and charged with grand larceny, petit larceny and criminal possession of stolen property, a spokesman for DA Daniel Donovan said.