Bruce Haring
Sat, November 27, 2021, 9:30 AM·2 min read
A former Philadelphia police commissioner predicted Friday that mass robbery crews would spread out across the country, given their success in a recent spate of California attacks on retailers. His prediction proved correct on Black Friday.
Charles Ramsey, the ex-Philadelphia commissioner, said there’s “no question” that the trend will occur elsewhere.
“This is something now that I really unfortunately think is going to spread,” Ramsey told CNN on Thursday. “Right now it’s in California, but it will spread, there’s no question about it.”
UPDATE: The rising tide of flash mob thieves hit the Bottega Veneta store in the Beverly Grove shopping district on Black Friday at 5:21 PM. LAPD reports that one robber pepper-sprayed a victim as his teammates grabbed merchandise.
Elsewhere, a Home Depot in Lakewood, Calif. was hit at 7:55 PM. An estimated eight people stole sledgehammers, wrenches and assorted hammers, fleeing in 10 getaway cars.
In Minnesota, an estimated 30 people robbed a Best Buy store in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul area. They entered the Burnsville, Minnesota store shortly after 8 PM and made off with electronics gear.
Chicago saw three stores in the Wicker Park neighborhood robbed within one hour on Black Friday.
California’s Bay Area and Los Angeles have been particularly hard hit by the flash mob attacks in the last week. Six smash-and-grab robberies took place in the Fairfax District, Beverly Grove and Hancock Park on Friday.
Last Wednesday, another robbery happened at a Los Angeles-area Nordstrom. The store at the Westfield Topanga & The Village shopping center in Canoga Park was hit at about 7 p.m.
A group of at least five men, one wearing an orange wig, entered the store and stole seven or eight purses before fleeing the scene and jumping into a newer model gray Ford Mustang that sped away from the scene, according to reports from ABC7 and KCAL9. They stole an estimated $20,000 in merchandise.
Earlier in the San Francisco area, a crowd estimated at 80 people attacked another outlet in Walnut Creek.
Newsweek reported that a Burberry and Yves Saint Laurent outlet were also robbed last Friday.
Ramsey said that Philadelphia saw something similar a few years ago. “It was really, really difficult to get a handle on it,” said Ramsey. “What we found was, one, it was being organized through social media. So one of the things we started doing is paying close attention to social media.”
Flash mob smash-and-grabs continue at high-end stores in Los Angeles
Doug Smith
Thu, November 25, 2021
A security guard patrols the entrance of Nordstrom at the Grove mall on Tuesday.
Doug Smith
Thu, November 25, 2021
A security guard patrols the entrance of Nordstrom at the Grove mall on Tuesday.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
A rash of flash mob thefts continued in Los Angeles as organized groups grabbed expensive merchandise in pre-Thanksgiving raids on stores in the Beverly Center and a Nordstrom in Canoga Park.
A security guard was attacked with bear spray as several people entered the Nordstrom at the Westfield Topanga & The Village shopping center in Canoga Park on Wednesday night, the Los Angeles Police Department said in a news release.
In interviews with local TV stations, LAPD Deputy Chief Alan Hamilton said the burglars made off with several high-end purses.
Hamilton told CBS Los Angeles that extra officers had been deployed to the shopping center but the burglars were able to avoid them.
The LAPD was also investigating a similar incident in which groups entered several stores in the Beverly Center on Wednesday, grabbed merchandise and ran out.
Officers were pursuing leads to catch those involved, the news release said.
The break-ins came two days after an organized group broke into a Nordstrom at the Grove mall by smashing a window and stole thousands of dollars of merchandise.
Los Angeles police arrested three suspects in connection with that incident. Officers recovered several items of clothing, at least one cash register and gloves from the suspects' vehicle.
On Tuesday, LAPD Chief Michel Moore told the Police Commission that the department would be stepping up patrols and dedicating resources to some higher-end locations to deter the wave of mob thefts.
In another burglary Monday, six people entered a CVS pharmacy on the 5800 block of South Vermont Avenue in South Los Angeles and stole three cash registers, taking about $8,500 in cash, police said.
On Sunday, burglars used a sledgehammer to try to smash storefront windows at Louis Vuitton and Saks Fifth Avenue stores in Beverly Hills.
They were unable to get into the stores, and nothing was taken, according to police.
In Contra Costa County, Dist. Atty. Diana Becton announced Wednesday that three people have been arrested and charged in a burglary in which about 90 people stormed a Nordstrom in Walnut Creek on Nov. 20, using three separate entrances.
Parking 25 cars in front of the store, the group stole more than $100,000 in about a minute, a criminal complaint said.
One Nordstrom employee was pepper-sprayed, another assaulted with a knife and two struck or punched, the complaint said.
Dana Dawson, 30, Joshua Underwood, 32, and Rodney Robinson, 19, were arrested by the Walnut Creek Police Department and charged with conspiracy, burglary, robbery and organized retail theft.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
A rash of flash mob thefts continued in Los Angeles as organized groups grabbed expensive merchandise in pre-Thanksgiving raids on stores in the Beverly Center and a Nordstrom in Canoga Park.
A security guard was attacked with bear spray as several people entered the Nordstrom at the Westfield Topanga & The Village shopping center in Canoga Park on Wednesday night, the Los Angeles Police Department said in a news release.
In interviews with local TV stations, LAPD Deputy Chief Alan Hamilton said the burglars made off with several high-end purses.
Hamilton told CBS Los Angeles that extra officers had been deployed to the shopping center but the burglars were able to avoid them.
The LAPD was also investigating a similar incident in which groups entered several stores in the Beverly Center on Wednesday, grabbed merchandise and ran out.
Officers were pursuing leads to catch those involved, the news release said.
The break-ins came two days after an organized group broke into a Nordstrom at the Grove mall by smashing a window and stole thousands of dollars of merchandise.
Los Angeles police arrested three suspects in connection with that incident. Officers recovered several items of clothing, at least one cash register and gloves from the suspects' vehicle.
On Tuesday, LAPD Chief Michel Moore told the Police Commission that the department would be stepping up patrols and dedicating resources to some higher-end locations to deter the wave of mob thefts.
In another burglary Monday, six people entered a CVS pharmacy on the 5800 block of South Vermont Avenue in South Los Angeles and stole three cash registers, taking about $8,500 in cash, police said.
On Sunday, burglars used a sledgehammer to try to smash storefront windows at Louis Vuitton and Saks Fifth Avenue stores in Beverly Hills.
They were unable to get into the stores, and nothing was taken, according to police.
In Contra Costa County, Dist. Atty. Diana Becton announced Wednesday that three people have been arrested and charged in a burglary in which about 90 people stormed a Nordstrom in Walnut Creek on Nov. 20, using three separate entrances.
Parking 25 cars in front of the store, the group stole more than $100,000 in about a minute, a criminal complaint said.
One Nordstrom employee was pepper-sprayed, another assaulted with a knife and two struck or punched, the complaint said.
Dana Dawson, 30, Joshua Underwood, 32, and Rodney Robinson, 19, were arrested by the Walnut Creek Police Department and charged with conspiracy, burglary, robbery and organized retail theft.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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