Forty-five-year-old Ramon Pacheco was arrested for breaking into thirteen apartments downtown yesterday. His mode of entry was usually acrobatic, incorporating windows, skylights, and even air-conditioning slits. He stole laptops, iPods, cash, and cameras in the burglaries, which occurred in the East Village and Lower East Side neighborhoods. His crime spree has helped push the crime rate in the Ninth Precinct way up. In the month leading up to this week, there was a 90 percent surge in burglaries compared to the same period last year. “He’s kind of like a Spider-Man,” a law-enforcement source marveled to the Post, regarding Pacheco’s methods. We don’t know who this law-enforcement source is, but he obviously has a good tabloid instinct. Because even though Spider-Man was, you know, a hero rather than a criminal, and spiders themselves aren’t really known for busting through windows to wreak havoc, the idea of a “spider burglar” has a certain ring to it. As opposed to, say, “pigeon burglar,” which would make more sense, as pigeons are evil entities that might actually crash through your skylight, claw at your shiny possessions, and generally terrorize you inside your own apartment.
