“The takeaway is we need the political will, more prosecution and backing of law enforcement.” Why should a police officer waste time getting into an altercation when the person is not going to jail because it’s overcrowded and a prosecutor is not going to prosecute that case because it’s not high on the priority list?” Eliadis said. “There’s no political will to prosecute the people in this climate. And, he added, the “defund the police” movement has sapped some officers’ morale. One reason for this is law enforcement’s lack of resources, which means theft cases sometimes are put on the back burner, he said. Police investigate a robbery at a Luis Vuitton store near San Francisco's Union Square.

Police in Los Angeles and San Francisco have made some arrests, but thieves often face few consequences, Eliadis said. Many of the store thieves wear masks or hoods, making them difficult to identify even when they’re spotted on security cameras. In the Central district, for example, larceny and theft incidents are up almost 88% from a year earlier, and overall crime is up almost 52%, according to police statistics. San Francisco has seen a surge in crime since it reopened in the pandemic. Such cases aren’t always a priority for law enforcement “The pandemic is overused at this point.”īut security experts cited a mix of several other factors. “This has nothing to do with the pandemic,” said Pete Eliadis, a former law enforcement official and founder of security company Intelligence Consulting Partners. So why so many recent incidents? Are they linked to the holiday season? Is it pandemic restlessness? Fourteen robbers barged into a Louis Vuitton store in suburban Chicago last week and fled with more than $100,000 in handbags and other merchandise. Image Press Agency/NurPhoto/Shutterstockģ arrested after at least 18 people break into Nordstrom store in Los Angeles, police sayĪnd California isn’t the only place grappling with “smash-and-grab” crimes. That robbery came after similar raids Friday night near San Francisco’s Union Square, where thieves targeted Louis Vuitton, Burberry and Bloomingdale’s stores, a Walgreens and cannabis dispensaries.Ī view of the Nordstrom store at The Grove Los Angeles on Main Beverly Grove, Los Angeles, California, United States. Some 80 suspects were involved, and they fled the outdoor mall in at least 10 different vehicles, police said.

Three suspects were arrested Saturday night after a mob ransacked a Nordstrom department store in Walnut Creek, east of San Francisco. A group of thieves swarmed the Southland Mall in Hayward on Sunday evening, wielding hammers to smash cases at a jewelry store before grabbing items and fleeing. The thefts followed a rash of similar incidents over the weekend in the San Francisco Bay Area. A wave of “smash-and-grab” crimes is plaguing upscale stores in major US cities, with mobs of thieves making off with expensive goods in brazen, nighttime raids.Īt least 18 people broke into a Nordstrom department store in Los Angeles Monday night and stole thousands of dollars in merchandise, the city’s police chief said.

General grabber