Black Friday has almost always brought out the worst in us; from the time spent away from our families during the holidays to the violent anarchy that we see in many of the big box stores.
And, as though the hordes of crazed shoppers tearing at pallets of barely-discounted televisions in the aisles of a Walmart wasn’t bad enough, the 2021 holiday shopping season has gotten off to an even rougher start thanks to a scourge of looting flash mobs that have ransacked stores from coast to coast.
Smash-and-grab looters targeted stores across the country ahead of Thanksgiving and over Black Friday weekend, robbing stores of thousands of dollars in merchandise and even leaving one California security guard dead as he tried to protect a news crew that was reporting on the crimes.
“We tried to stop them,” Home Depot employee Luis Romo told FOX 11 of a “flash mob” targeting the store in Lakewood, California, on Black Friday. “We closed the front entrance and they put their sledgehammers up and whoever got in the way, they were going to hurt them.”
The group of eight robbers stole hammers, crowbars and other tools, swiping about $400 worth of merchandise. Such tools have been used in other smash-and-grab robberies in the state, including in a Nordstrom in Walnut Creek, California, last week.
n Monterey, a group of about four people stole an estimated $30,000 worth of sunglasses from a Sunglass Hut. In San Francisco, thieves between the ages of 14 and 18 took more than $20,000 from an Apple store in broad daylight on Wednesday.
The crimes have also poured into other areas in the country, including in Chicago where police say thieves threw a cinderblock through a Canada Goose store between midnight and 6 a.m. on Thanksgiving and took merchandise. Three other smash-and-grabs unfolded in the city, where thieves targeted a Foot Locker, a North Face store and a cell phone store.
Then, in an unforgivable act…
The most tragic incident unfolded in California, when an Oakland security guard was fatally shot during an armed robbery while protecting a news crew covering a previous smash-and-grab theft.
“It is with the deepest sadness that I let you know security guard Kevin Nishita has passed away,” said Mark Neerman, vice president of news and news director at KPIX. “He died protecting one of our own, a colleague reporting on the very violence that took his life. I know you join me in sending condolences to his family and in sending thanks to Kevin for standing up for us all.”
Many major retailers have long maintained policies that prevent store employees from interacting or otherwise trying to stop shoplifters – a factor that is considered to have possibly emboldened these criminals.
