[originaltext] Purse snatching is an increasing common crime. There are esti

Purse snatching is an increasing common crime. There are estimated 50 to 100 purse snatchings each month in the New York City subways. One of the favored techniques is to stand between two subway cars and, as the train starts pulling out of the station, reach out and pull free a woman’s purse.
    Recently, a crime analysis officer for the New York Police Department found that purse stealing in Manhattan’s top restaurants was up 5 percent over the previous year. When a woman puts her purse on a vacant chair at a table or at her feet beside her chair, she is inviting a purse snatcher to take it. Purse snatchers often work in pairs. When a target in a restaurant is sighted, one of them will create some kind of disturbance to gain the victim’s attention. While the woman is looking away from her table, the actual snatcher will lift the purse. A popular technique is for the thief, man or woman, to carry an umbrella with the curved handle down. The umbrella handle suddenly hooks the bag and in an instant it is on the thief’s wrist or under the coat over his arm if he is a man, and on its way out of the restaurant. Police advise that women in restaurants keep their purses either on their laps or on the floor between their legs.
    Other purse snatchers who operate in theaters are called "seat tippers", victimizing women who put their purses down on an adjacent empty seat. Yet others specialize in snatching purses from ladies’ rooms. When a woman is in a toilet stall, her purse should never be placed on the floor or hung on the coat hook on the door.