A group of thieves on Monday night smashed windows at a department store at a luxury mall in Los Angeles, triggering a police pursuit just days after high-end stores throughout the San Francisco Bay Area were targeted.
The latest incident in a national trend of smash-and-grab crimes targeted a Nordstrom store at The Grove retail and entertainment complex.
It came as the country’s largest consumer electronics chain said an increase in organized theft was taking a toll on its bottom line.
Workers on Tuesday covered a large broken window at the Nordstrom with black plywood as security guards and shoppers walked in and out of the store.
Los Angeles Police Department Chief Michel Moore said that the agency would beef up its patrols around high-end stores citywide.
Crimes like these “have a profoundly greater impact on the sense of safety and security than simply the dollar loss of the merchandise,” Moore said.
The thieves struck at about 10:40pm, using a sledgehammer and an e-bike to break the window’s glass, Moore said.
About 20 people were involved in the smash-and-grab theft, stealing about US$5,000 of merchandise and leaving about US$15,000 of damage to the store when they fled.
Officers pursued an SUV involved in the crime, and the chase ended with three people — including a juvenile — arrested.
The Grove incident followed a weekend of similar brazen thefts in the San Francisco Bay Area and Beverly Hills in which groups of people, some carrying crowbars and hammers, ransacked high-end stores and stole jewelry, sunglasses, suitcases, clothing and other merchandise before fleeing in waiting vehicles.
Prosecutors from six Bay Area counties said that they would make a joint effort to combat organized retail theft and met with a representative of the state attorney general’s office to discuss a partnership to “develop effective solutions to breaking up the fencing networks that are driving this kind of crime,” San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin’s office said in a statement.
The thefts are believed to be part of sophisticated criminal networks that recruit mainly young people to steal merchandise in stores throughout the US and then sell it on online marketplaces.
Experts and law enforcement officials say the thefts are ratcheting up as the holiday shopping season gets under way.
The National Retail Federation said that a survey found stores are seeing an increase in organized thefts perpetrators’ aggression.
Coalition of Law Enforcement and Retail president Ben Dugan said that the thieves get paid US$500 to US$1,000 to take as much as they can and bring it back to organizers who ship it to other parts of the US.
“This is a real issue that hurts and scares real people,” Best Buy chief executive officer Corie Barry said.
Barry told reporters during a separate call that the company is seeing organized theft increase across the country, but particularly in San Francisco.
However, loss prevention agents and security guards are generally trained not to engage with thieves, said David Levenberg, the founder of Florida-based Center Security Services.
“They are not trained or equipped to pursue or subdue suspects, and the likelihood of violence is too great,” Levenberg said.
“The value of the merchandise is not worth somebody being injured or killed,” he said.
While smash-and-grab thefts are occurring nationwide, Levenberg said that cities with progressive prosecutors, such as Los Angeles and San Francisco, are especially hard-hit because the punishments for perpetrators are not as harsh as in other cities.
“The consequences are minimal and the profits are substantial,” he said.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in