Posted on 04/28/2011 8:10:14 AM PDT by Altura Ct.
ust before 6 p.m. Monday, a group of nearly 20 young men enter the trendy - and pricey - G Star Raw store at Connecticut Avenue and R Street near Dupont Circle and began helping themselves to whatever they wanted.
The store is down Connecticut Avenue from the National Zoo and this incident occurred about an hour after the stabbing there.
During their minutes long flash mob theft spree, video, exclusively obtained by ABC7 News, shows the suspects hunting through the merchandise as if they were looking for the right size, sometimes even leisurely. Other kids can be seen outside on cell phones and appear to be acting as lookouts for the police.
The store manager can be seen taking back some of the merchandise from some of the suspects.
According to store manager Gregory Lennon, the thieves made off with around a hundred items worth "thousands of thousands of dollars" from a store that is known for trendy and expensive styles of jeans, shirts and jackets.
"They helped themselves to whatever they wanted," said Lennon. "They had no fear, they weren't concerned. They were on their cell phones inside the store talking to their friend outside the store who were watching for the police."
"There were no police on the street," he said. "I looked outside and in both directions and couldn't see any officers."
The manager says he called 911 shortly before 6pm. There is a 10 minute gap between when the manager is seen on the phone and when an MPD officer entered the store.
Chief Cathy Lanier provided ABC7 with the MPD call log of the incident showing two 911 calls were made, and officers were dispatched about four minutes after the first call and reported on scene "canvassing" about three-and-a-half minutes later.
Chief Lanier told ABC7 News Reporter Kris Van Cleave by phone that the second call to police gave a direction the suspects were heading and officers went that way first
Via email, Lanier said for the type of call she referred to as "theft1": "This response was very quick."
Witness Dan O'Neill had just left the store and was trying on a jacket in a neighboring Benetton store that connects to G Star Raw when he heard an alarm and watched two men come from G Star Raw and exit through the front door of the Benetton.
MPD call log:
17:59:43….. 1st Call
18:01:36……2nd Call
18:03:48……Dispatched to 2084/Kelvin Rodriguez & 2085/Rochelle Reid
18:08:09……2084 on the scene via I-mobile 2085 canvassing
18:18:11……2085 available via MDT
18:25:50……2084 obtains CCN numbers for Theft 1
MPD commander Michael Reese said the 2nd District has had six similar thefts since July of last year. In March, they arrested suspects believed to be connected to several of the thefts.
He said the police presence is adequate but will be readjusted as needed.
Animals
If the store owner had a shotgun he would still have his thousands and thousands of dollars
I remember the LA Riots after Rodney King.
The Korean store owners standing on their roofs with shotguns had the only places NOT robbed.
All cultures are equal, so the left tells us.
I bet it was someone else’s fault that these thieves were so brazen.
Obama and Holder’s people.
Hint: If you are shopping and see young men.. of a certain persuation... carry lots of clothes on each arm, and are pretending to get in line to pay... stick out your foot as they run past you.
Due to political correctness, we’re not supposed to jump to conclusions that these are black youth gangs doing this.
This type of thing was in the news in another city, Chicago, I think, recently?
Apparently the gangs are doing the flash mob thing and have no fear.
We have raised a feral fatherless generation of youth gangs in the ghetto. But due to political correctness, we are not allowed to call a spade a spade or really deal with this.
This will happen more and more. I expect more stores to be on lockdown, and admit people after you ring a doorbell to be admitted. I expect all of our costs to go up, as more stores hire their own private security to try to deter this sort of thing.
And we can’t say anything about the “baby mama” culture in which these “young men” were raised, because that also offends the sensibilities of the liberals.
Heck, a basic Mossberg 500 is probably cheaper than some of the jeans he sells; and just the sound of a shell being racked in to the chamber will likely cause a mass exodus of "young men" from his store, resulting in a drastic reduction in the amount of items being stolen.
It happened to the poor dude in front of me at a 7-11 years back. Black dude was just hovering near the counter, clerk gives large change to customer, black dude steals and runs, poor dude didn’t know what happened and chases homey out for 3 blocks.
Actually, thanks to LBJ's 'war on poverty', and its various 'progressive' successors and assigns, I am pretty sure that the current crop is at LEAST the third generation (in a row) of feral fatherless youth gangs in the ghettos.
Store owner a democrat, his tough luck.
OR, what we are already seeing in Detroit...stores will simply close their doors and move along. There are fewer and fewer places to steal from...oops, I mean shop at. When they don’t even have a place left to buy food, it will be street justice.
welcome to BRA
Those store owners knew what day it was, “African-American Family Day” at the zoo, and they’re surprised? Close up for the day. Business owners in Myrtle Beach used to do it during the now-defunct Black Bike Week.
Obama’s Army
I didn’t see any mention in the article of it being African-American Family day at the National zoo.
When they have African-American Family day there next year they should have a cop placed every ten feet of the Zoo and a Swat team outside.
“I didn’t see any mention in the article of it being African-American Family day at the National zoo.”
Yeah, the media doesn’t want anyone drawing their own conclusions. They will do that for you.
Yes, yes. You almost messed up when you called it stealing. It’s not stealing. In fact, these youths are simply cutting out the middleman (government) and collecting their welfare directly. We should applaud them for their innovation!
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