Kristen Stoykova had never been held at gunpoint before.

As the manager of the high-end boutique Slope Jeans on Garfield Place in Park Slope, Stoykova caters to clientele with cash to spend, people who don’t flinch dropping $200 on a pair of jeans.

Slope Jeans was targeted by an armed robber on Nov. 12. Photo: Lauren Sausser

But that peaceful scene was shattered when Stoykova, working at the store on Nov. 12, was targeted by a gunman.

“He pretended to be a customer,” Stoykova said. “He said not to press any buttons or try something clever.”

She opened the cash register and handed over the merchandise he demanded.

The man, wearing a green jacket and a hat, took off with $200 and more than $1,500 of clothes, including several pairs of designer jeans and a leather jacket.

“I was terrified after he left. While he was in here I wasn’t really thinking, I just wanted him to get out,” she said. “The detectives come in almost every day with pictures. They are still trying to find him.”

***

By most accounts, Park Slope is a safe neighborhood. Its statistics show that it is the second-safest precinct in Brooklyn, the borough with the second-highest crime rate in the city. But a rash of armed robberies in the past month has set off shock waves in the community, making local store owners fearful that their businesses may be targeted next.

Mitch Spizek, president of the Park Slope Chamber of Commerce and owner of Little Things toy store, remained calm amid chaos as technicians worked to install security cameras and phone lines throughout the shop before Thanksgiving. Pre-holiday customers flooded the small store on Seventh Avenue, possibly portending strong December sales.

Spizek, a retired lieutenant of the New York Police Department, is keenly aware that desperate economic times can drive would-be thieves to take desperate measures. Before Thanksgiving, he organized a meeting with an officer from the 78th Precinct to offer tips to local business owners on how to better protect themselves from crime.

“Incidents are going to happen wherever you are. If you live in a city, something can happen. What we’re trying do is share information,” said Spizek, who decided to install the cameras after three armed robberies occurred in Park Slope within one month, including the robbery at Slope Jeans. “It’s something that I wanted to do anyway and this just solidified the fact that I wanted safety and security and I wanted to nip that in the bud.”

Luckily for Stoykova, Slope Jeans had security cameras installed before the robbery. Police have not arrested a suspect, but have a clear image of the man they are searching for.

In an unrelated case, police arrested a suspect in the armed robbery of the McDonald’s on Fourth Avenue in Park Slope on Oct. 13. In that incident, police said Neb Morrow, wielding a .380-caliber handgun, entered the restaurant and demanded money.

After fleeing the premises, police wrestled Morrow, 41, to the pavement. The gun and $1,500 in stolen cash were confiscated.

Franchise owners declined to comment on the case. The manager of that location, who identified himself as Widnil, said, “It’s something that we dealt with and now we want to move on.”

A third man, who demanded cash at gun point at a Game Stop in Park Slope in early November, is still on the loose.

***

New York City is an extremely safe place to live, insists Eugene O’Donnell, a professor at the John Jay College of Media, Crime and Justice. In fact, he said it’s safer than many other smaller cities around the country.

“It’s not clear why crime has improved and nobody really knows for sure. It has something to do with better policing strategies, but that’s just part of it. More cops make the city safer, but now the department is shrinking and the city is still getting safer,” said O’Donnell, a former New York City policeman.

Gentrification has played a huge factor in reducing pockets of crime across the five boroughs, he said.

“There are higher real estate values and less people with lower incomes, and this is definitely connected to the crime being reduced. There used to be no-go areas that now have million-dollar condos,” he said. “New York City is palpably safe and it’s reflected in neighborhoods I go into where people wouldn’t have been on the street 20 years ago. You can’t even fathom how safe it is.”

Officers from the 78th Precinct and representatives from the Office of the Deputy Commissioner, Public Safety declined to comment for this article.

***

In light of the recent armed robberies, it is clear Park Slope is not crime free.. On Christmas Eve 2007, Park Slope resident and writer Douglas Rushkoff was mugged at knifepoint outside his brownstone. Before calling the police, both he and his wife, Barbara, blogged about the incident online.

“The deep, dark secret about Park Slope is that there’s tons of crime here,” Barbara Rushkoff wrote on her blog, “A Girl Grows in Brooklyn.” “According to the detectives … Manhattan is safe, but Brooklyn is decidedly not.”

The post set off a maelstrom of controversy from Park Slope residents who were concerned their property values would decrease and from residents throughout New York whose neighborhoods are much less safe.

Douglas Rushkoff, who included a description of the incident and the ensuing media frenzy that followed in his book, “Life Inc.,” published earlier this year, declined to be interviewed on the subject, but wrote in an e-mail message, “The mugging was more about gentrification and the neighbors’ reaction to bad publicity. I don’t have good data on crime in Park Slope, and don’t trust the data that is out there.”

But Louise Crawford, author of the hyper-local Park Slope blog “Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn,” agreed with both former police officers Spizek and O’Donnell that the crime statistics released by the local precinct appear accurate.

“They were just being honest,” Crawford said of the Rushkoffs. “It was a trauma. It was not a very pleasant experience and they got criticized for dissing the neighborhood and there were a lot comments. Invariably, in the age of blogging and commenting, anything you say someone is going to jump on your back.”

Park Slope is a relatively safe place to live, she said, but it is still part of the largest borough in the largest city in the country.

“I don’t feel particularly safe on any street in any city when it’s dark,” she said. “This is Brooklyn. It’s New York City. In Park Slope, we feel safer because there are always a lot of people out and about and that’s always gong to create the feeling of safety in numbers. But as a New Yorker, I tend to be very, very confident when I walk down the street. I’m very wary and very alert.”

But Sean O’Brien, assistant manager of Video Forum on Seventh Avenue, has no qualms about walking 20 minutes from Park Slope to his apartment in Crown Heights every night.

“I’ve never felt threatened here or run into anyone that made me feel nervous,” O’Brien said. “I know there are a lot of families here but there are also just a lot of people who have been here forever. It’s way more like a community then some of the other neighborhoods. I think that makes it feel safer.”

Marc Garstein, president of Warren Lewis Realty in Park Slope, is a longtime resident of the community. He said people move to the neighborhood because it has a reputation as being safe and family-friendly.

“We live in a big city and I think it’s relatively safe here,” Garstein said. “I have no idea if the statistics are accurate or not but back in the 70s it was a lot less safe. You wouldn’t go anywhere near Prospect Park unless you could get out by dark. Now, it’s just too expensive for there to be that much crime.”