In California, Group of up to 50 people shoplift about $100K worth of luxury items from L.A. mall; used bear spray against guards

Sorry Candy this is a major problem & much of it is organized crime as the thieves target high end items who in turn sell the product online.  People see this riots and choose not to shop there anymore & the downward spiral begins.   Union Square in San Fran which was once the premier shopping area in SF is now mostly abandoned.  SF Centre is now closed

According to the National Retail Federation's (NRF) annual survey of around 60 retail member companies, shrink is a “rapidly ballooning issue.” In 2021, retail shrink hit $94.5 billion,a 53% jump from 2019.

Theft is now over $100b in 2023.  I was in Smiths last week in Henderson Nv & the entrances are gated & now one way in and one way out.  The OTC products are walled off,  with an employee at the front of the aisle limiting how many people can go in the aisle.

Wow, how breathtakingly STOOOPID. "Organized crime"? What on earth does that have to do with this incident? It was about as unorganized as anything gets!

Oh, and Smith's is a grocery store, not a high-end boutique. Tom may have been in one of his frequent fogs, shopping for jewelry for his boyfriend.

Stupid Tommie-poo.

  Apparently Lewis is as blindingly ignorant to this trend as he has been about the millions of illegal aliens crossing the southern border. This kind of stealing will continue to esculate unless it is stopped.- and defunding the police, and having criminals not being prosecuted has led up to this current trend. The blame falls squarely on DemocRatic policies and governing.

Pssst. tRump's going to jail.

Oh, I'm all for everybody getting the punishment deserved.  Just pointing out some realities.  Way worse acts than this, the perps get nothing in the end, which everybody knows.   Again, we get the front page version, not the end results.  Y'all make it sound like I'm excusing this behavior, crimes, etc., which couldn't be further from the truth.  But that's the risk of posting in Kitchen Sink, so that's on me.  Thanks anyway.

Candy

Stupid delusional kevin.  This is how they operate, whether it is a high end retailer or the local supermarket.  The gang storms into the store grabs what they can in a few minutes & leave.  Product is then sold online 

Retailers and store employees say many thieves have become stunningly brazen, storming in and openly taking what they want. "These criminals feel like they own the store," said Tony Settles.They come in with bags, fill the bags. They leave." Flash mob-style shoplifting hits have made national headlines, such as an incident north of San Francisco where about 80 people looted at a Nordstrom store. , Whole Foods shuttered a San Francisco store that had been repeatedly hit by gangs of thieves, citing fear for staffers' safety. Such incidents have helped turn shoplifting into a political issue.

    I can envision the day when shopping anywhere one will have to enter thru locked metal gates, similar to the ones found in many jewelry stores - and more people will be forced to shop online with businesses that have delivery services. 

Tom, let us know when left leaning politiicans promise pardons for the felons in this thread's article .  THen you can say they are as scummy as the people you vote for.

We have liberal prosecutors like alvin bragg who choose not to prosecute criminals and instead prosecute bodega owners who try to defend themselves. Just 327 unrepentant crooks accounted for 30% of the Big Apple’s 22,000 shoplifting arrests last year, the NYPD said.

How about this.

Bronx prosecutor downgraded charges against an ex-con accused of sucker-punching a man into a coma — helping to free the suspect

Cops had arrested suspect Van Phi Bui (a convicted sex assaulter), 55, for attempted murder in the horrific Aug. 12 attack, only to watch as the DA reduced the charges to non-bail-eligible misdemeanors

And this one

A ex-con vagrant accused of beating a woman in a Queens subway station had been arrested for violating his parole weeks before the caught-on-video attack — only to be cut loose thanks to a state “reform’’ backed by Gov. Hochul

Waheed Foster, 41, was still on parole for an assault rap when he was arrested twice for misdemeanors in August, records show. But instead of being held on the parole violation — as his parole officer wanted — a judge freed the career criminal, who also killed his grandma when he was 14.

While my friend Steve lived in the Lincoln Park area of Chicago, this is the sort of thing that lead him to move after 30 years.  The kid gloves policies practiced by Libs is a loser for...all including the young crooks.