Video captured a mob of thieves swarming a Nordstrom in Canoga Park as they cleared out the store during a destructive robbery on Saturday.
Chaos ensued as a large group of masked thieves clad in dark clothing scrambled around the store, grabbing armfuls of designer clothing, purses, accessories and more.
Los Angeles police received reports of the mass robbery at the Westfield Topanga mall around 4 p.m.
Police said anywhere between 20-50 suspects are believed to be involved, although the exact number has not been confirmed.
The thieves were seen violently grabbing whatever merchandise they could carry, with many seen ripping the security devices attached to designer purses and luggage items. Store shelves and display racks were destroyed, knocked over and littered across the floor along with a ton of fallen merchandise.
At one point, a security guard who tried to intervene was attacked with a chemical spray, police said. It’s unclear what that person’s condition is.
The suspects all fled in multiple getaway cars before officers could arrive. Guests were evacuated from the department store as officers cordoned off the scene during a busy Saturday.
The estimated dollar amount of stolen merchandise is not yet known.
Citizen video later showed store employees sweeping up broken glass from the floor and clearing the mess and debris strewn everywhere. Details on how the smash-and-grab robbery was coordinated remain under investigation.
This isn’t a “flash mob”. This is definitely organized crime.
Yes, but ‘flash mob’ sounds like something the scary young people do!
RICO?
I am honestly surprised it’s not already an epidemic of mass robberies over mass shootings. As the divide between rich and poor widens, more and more people are bound to become outraged as they’re backed into a corner. I don’t condone this, I just see it as one of of the natural consequences of our predicament.
Who steals designer bags with 20-50 of their friends when backed into a corner? Isn’t food generally wiser to steal if you are extremely poor?
No, if you’re already cool with stealing, it makes way more sense to steal high value items to fence for the cash to spend on all your needs. One robbery might net you food, gas, and some rent money.
Steal food and all those other things are still a need. Also you are limited to the food you can actually steal.
I’ll admit I’m not too familiar with crime, but I can’t see them getting anywhere near face value for any of these things. And I wouldn’t want to go down for larceny in the amount thousands + violent robbery + potential culpability regarding the harmed security guard.
I rescind the comment if it really is that easy to sell high value stolen items. Just assumed pawn shops would be suspicious, eBay would have too large a paper trail, and selling them individually is difficult and time consuming.
You really really don’t need a business to fence things in 2023. It’s also safe to assume that a group that can coordinate a robbery like this one likely has put the effort in to coordinate where the loot is going.
Yeah fair I hadn’t thought that far into it and would make a pretty poor criminal. I was also mentally framing it as a need-to-eat situation where I presume most don’t have the resources to coordinate the loot sale. But organized crime does need to eat too.
Again I don’t condone this and don’t necessarily believe this was the reasoning behind what happened, but no it’s not wiser to steal food over luxury goods if your intent is to feed your starving family for the foreseeable future. With one handful you can leave with $10k from that store. This is why they were dragging the purses that were basically fused to the display racks. A single purse might be $3k. So a thousand times the price of a loaf of bread. If you already made the decision that you’re stealing to support your family, are you going to want to do it every other day, or are you going to want to grab one purse that feeds your family for a month?
They’re not going to get anywhere near retail value for those, and robbery like this vs petty larceny is punished more harshly.
So is bear spraying a security guard. He’s probably not rich, and if you get caught, you’re not feeding your family anything for a long time.
Anyway I know you said you don’t necessarily believe that was the reason, but I just didn’t like the implication that poor people would gather 20-50 like minded friends to ransack a store and potentially hurt people to steal designer bags. I know some people, when pushed far enough, will resort to robbery but the number and willingness to harm for a commodity that’s difficult to sell feels like typical organized crime. Not your intention and maybe I’m reading too much into it, but I feel like associating poor people for large scale crime like this only makes things worse for them societally.
It doesn’t matter that they won’t get anywhere near the 100k worth of the items. They still grabbed far more value with a single purse than they could ever clutch running out of a Whole Foods.
I forgot that already biased people could use this as just another reason to hate the poor. First they want to steal a loaf of bread, now they want luxury goods worth many loaves, right? Except this isn’t an evil poor mentality, it’s a human mentality. Bear spraying the guard that is standing in your way isn’t a poor thing, it’s a criminal thing. No one is spraying guards because they are rich.
The reality is that if these people were in the top 1%, there’s no chance they’d have resorted to this, and would instead conduct their thieving unmasked in a cozy office chair. We can’t know where exactly this mob falls in the bottom 99%, and my point is that with the increasing divide between rich and poor, it’s becoming less relevant where they fall.
We can’t allow our voices to be silenced for fear of someone else twisting them in hatred.
I get that and largely agree, but I still feel it’s unfair to associate the mass robbery alone with poor person things. All of this is my personal opinion and I’ll repeat that a lot to emphasize that I’m not saying anything as fact.
The message of “this looting isn’t surprising given the increased divide between the rich and the poor,” to me, is already bridging the gap for opportunistic bad actors. While we shouldn’t be silent, it’s worth noting that some words may do more harm than good. In my eyes, the potential gain is minuscule (most people know that desperation begets desperate acts) and the inverse is high (very few people in the country this happened in will agree with a violent robbery, especially one of this scale). Outside of the unique ecosystem of Lemmy, that comment would be good ammo for bad actors and a bad supporting statement for good arguments.
And yeah, some of it is simply that I personally don’t like associating poor with a crime like this.
Anyway, beyond that I don’t disagree with the primary point, merely how it was presented. I also doubt there’s anything that would make me feel more comfortable with that association, but fortunately the opinion of one random person doesn’t matter and that saves you time responding. Be well!
The message of “this looting isn’t surprising given the increased divide between the rich and the poor,” to me, is already bridging the gap for opportunistic bad actors.
BREAKING NEWS: Bad Actors twist what research suggests! In a shocking turn of events, opportunistic Bad Actors claim “Poor people bad!” after an internet forum user points out what research has already said ages ago; that violent crimes are correlated to income inequality. The user went on to point out that this is the fault of billionaires, but the Bad Actors were unrelenting.
Holding me personally accountable for real life is you being unfair. Be well, too. Careful the bad actors don’t get to your words, next!
I can’t even get 10 people to show up for a birthday party, but they can organize 20+ for a robbery. Feels bad.
show up for a birthday party
That’s because only one person gets gifts at a birthday party.
You don’t give out party favors? Not even one of those things you blow into and it unrolls? Stingy.
I wish they’d stop calling these “flash mobs”. It’s 100% organized.
Are you under the impression that ordinary flash mobs aren’t organised? You think it really is 10-30 people randomly singing some inspirational song?
No, they’re saying these aren’t random people who all saw the same social media post to rob the mall. It’s organized, as in organized crime.
I’m sure those designer bags and clothing will be a nutritious meal for dozens of starving families struggling to get by. Goddamn ridiculous.
NBC Los Angeles reports that they used bear spray on the guard(s) (OP’s article mentions one, NBC states two) in case anyone’s curious. Not something I’d recommend trying more than once, hope they’re doing all right.
You know you can sell that stuff for food right?
I’m not condoning what they did, I would love to see them get arrested.
But your comment is just poorly thought it
I recognize that goods can be sold, yes. I stand by my comment though, this was a shitty thing to do and unfortunately, internet sarcasm and sympathy for the victims is all I have to offer.
Horrifying, bear spray is to pepper spray as a Carolina reaper is to a habanero. That soon-to-be-unemployed man will have nightmares for years.
No. Bear spray is actually weaker than regular pepper spray.
How? Bear spray has 1.5x the spice, twice the force, and twice the concentration in-air.
Hmm. I suppose you’re right. I had read that it was less effective a while ago, but maybe it’s due to it being a wider spread vs targeted.
It really depends on the bear spray, there’s a lot of variation between different products.
According to his biography, Ice-T was a pioneer in this type of robbery back in the late 80s. They used to hit mall designer stores, I remember seeing video of a couple of them on the news. These items are easy to sell, and some of the most lucrative things you can steal because of that.
deleted by creator
I used to buy weed in Canoga Park before it was legal.
Just so everyone knows.
These same clowns are going to cry and complain when these local stores shut down and leave the area without any jobs and no ability to do local shopping. This is how “food deserts” happen and how downtown areas become a ghost town.
Not sure why you are getting downvoted.
What’s worse is when there are no stores in that area, the organized crime will expand to other areas.
Because there are some kooks on Lemmy that have this attitude that “well the company is just going to use insurance to pay for those items, so it’s barely even considered theft if you take from a big company”.
Mix that in with anti-work and anti-corporation sentiment and they could probably justify this shit.
I don’t think stealing from Nordstrom at the mall is displacing local grocery stores, but you go ahead.
Oh so you think these clowns draw the line at LV purses and ugly shoes?? Yeah ok. Same pieces of trash that do this, will also be willing to hit up some grocery store and steal all the baby formula or other high value items.
And when regular folks see this shit happening, it makes them want to visit all those areas less which creates a downward spiral for businesses and ultimately jobs as companies say “fuck this” and close up shop.
And that still doesn’t create food deserts. You don’t understand what a food desert is.
Food deserts are created when Walmart sets up shop and undercuts a dozen smaller groceries sending them out of business, meaning that anyone who wants groceries now needs a car to get across the giant government mandated parking lot.
Theft has nothing to do with it and your attempts to link the two are pathetic.
If you think that it’s only Walmart that puts shops out of business, you’re utterly clueless.
What makes you think these thieves are local?
If I was going to steal from somewhere, I wouldn’t do it where someone might recognize me.
They were wearing masks so I doubt that’s an issue.
So they flew in from Utah or Idaho?
Or, you know, they were from a completely different part of SoCal.
Good. I hope they keep doing it, especially to “luxury” stores.
Shoot thieves.
Address the cause not the symptom
Ugh, but then how will I be able to define my whole personality around gun ownership if you take away all my boogeymen?
Shoot lawmakers who vote for policies that create poverty /s
