Another high-end mob rob
25G Nordstrom hit
California robbery gangs have struck again, swiping an estimated $25,000 in high-end goods after attacking a security guard with bear spray, according to local reports.
About five thieves — one in a distinctive orange wig — struck around 6:45 p.m. Wednesday at a Nordstrom in Canoga Park, KABC TV said of the latest in a plague of such smashand-grab raids.
After spraying the guard, they snatched up to eight expensive handbags before fleeing in a newer model gray Ford Mustang, the station said.
Multiple police cruisers, as well as firetrucks and ambulances, were seen swarming the store, but there were no immediate arrests. The guard was treated by paramedics at the scene, officials said.
It is just the latest such robbery in California — including at least two other Nordstrom stores.
One of the chains was targeted last Saturday, with wild footage showing an estimated 90 looters raiding the Walnut Creek branch in minutes.
An employee was also sprayed in that attack, while two others were punched and kicked, a store rep told NBC News at the time.
Three people have since been charged with felonies in that raid, officials told Fox Business.
Dana Dawson, 30, Joshua Underwood,
32, and Rodney Robinson, 19, were charged with a slew of crimes including organized retail theft, Fox Business said. Dawson was also charged with possession of a firearm by a felon.
Another Nordstrom was also struck Monday night, with about 20 people swiping about $5,000 worth of merchandise from the chain’s store in The Grove in Los Angeles, police said.
Shops in the San Francisco Bay Area have been repeatedly targeted in the crime spree. An Apple store in Santa Rosa was knocked over Wednesday morning, with four men fleeing with $20,000 in goods, cops said.
Some experts blame the brazen crimes on a 2014 city law that lessened the penalty for shoplifting to a misdemeanor if the theft is less than $950.
Nine people have been charged with felonies for stealing more than $1 million in goods in connection with Friday-night attacks on stores including Louis Vuitton, Burberry and Bloomingdale’s, officials said.
Police have said they will put more officers outside likely targets to prevent gangs from streaming in, and Gov. Gavin Newsom said the California Highway Patrol has also stepped up patrols.
Black Friday is famous for its packed stores, but if the surge in brazen retail attacks by flash mobs keeps up, there soon might be no stores left to pack. Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area and Chicago are seeing waves of “smash and grab” raids. The looters break windows, flood stores, beat and pepper-spray employees and make off with hundreds of thousands of dollars in goods.
In Walnut Creek, Calif., near San Francisco, a mob of 80 stormed a Nordstrom on Saturday, attacking workers and grabbing goods by the armful. A day earlier, a mob hit 10 retailers in San Francisco’s Union Square.
Chicago’s Magnificent Mile, likewise, has endured skyrocketing theft, including three carloads of perps robbing a Neiman Marcus last week. Vacant stores now make up a long stretch of North Michigan Avenue.
This is on top of massive shoplifting that has retail chains closing outlets by the dozen in Golden State cities.
With police overwhelmed, woke prosecutors deprioritizing such crimes and criminal penalties heavily reduced, looters (and the crime rings they work for) often face little or no consequences. Organized retail robbery has become a rational career choice.
Gotham, for its part, has been lucky — so far: Aside from during last summer’s riots, it’s been spared smash-and-grab outbreaks. Yet stores here, too, have seen a tidal wave of thefts, with more than 26,000 shoplifting cases through September alone, the most to that point in the 26 years on record.
Isaac “Man of Steal” Rodriguez, age 22, has been arrested 46 times for retail theft this year, and quickly released each time, The Post reported last month. The National Retail Federation ranks the city fourth in “organized retail crime” among top metro areas.
Shoppers suffer, too, from closed stores and from higher prices because remaining retailers must cover losses, insurance and security. Organized robberies now cost US retailers a whopping $65 billion a year.
Fueling these crimes is the same thing driving the spike in big-city murders: overreaching criminal-justice “reforms,” police departments shrinking in the wake of the Defund the Police movement and progressives’ general anti-cop hostility.
“Why should a police officer waste time getting into an altercation when the person is not going to jail?” asks Pete Eliadis, founder of Intelligence Consulting Partners.
If that doesn’t change, get set to do all your shopping online — until criminals target that, too.