“Six different Bay Area Apple stores have been targeted in a matter of weeks with the thieves getting past employees and security guards,” Melanie Woodrow reports for KGO. “Surveillance video captured recent heists in Corte Madera, Walnut Creek, Emeryville and Santa Rosa. Thieves also hit the Berkeley Apple Store. Most recently, this past Sunday, they got away with merchandise from the Burlingame Apple store.”
“‘These things are happening all the way from Pasadena to Pittsburg,’ said San Francisco Police Officers Association President Tony Montoya,” Woodrow reports. “Montoya doesn’t think it’s a coincidence that the Apple stores in the Marina and Union Square haven’t been hit recently. Both stores have uniformed officers on site. ‘I think it’s just an overall deterrent when they are casing these locations on whether or not they’re going to go in and steal these products,’ said Montoya.”
“In San Francisco, retailers contract with the city which in turn pays officers overtime for working these assignments outside of their regularly scheduled shifts,” Woodrow reports. “Montoya says smaller cities likely don’t have enough officers to fill the assignments. It’s not just Apple, thieves have also been targeting Lululemon stores around the Bay Area grabbing $100 yoga pants by the armful.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: It’s shocking, just shocking we tell you, that uniformed police officers on scene seem to deter criminals and that the police union president wants retailers like Apple to pay to station cops everywhere. Overtime, no less.
Here’s an idea: Make the penalty for attempting such crimes an actual deterrent itself because right now, given the rash of similar crimes, it doesn’t seem to be. Duh.
I rarely go into an Apple Store anymore but so far I don’t think anyone’s been killed. Don’t these thieves know yet all their smash and grabs are bricked after they walk out the door? They would have to steal fresh boxed stock in the back though Apple probably has inventory numbers on all those and could brick them as well.
You dont get it, these iPhones are stolen for their parts. They are broken up, the valuable parts sold off and the rest thrown away. Bricking is irrelevant
Add up the cost of the parts as found on online sites that sell them individually and you will quickly see that the parts are worth more than the phone itself. The Buddha’s chariot parable applies. There is no iPhone.
Yes and can you imagine how little they get for these parts compared to the prison sentences they would receive if caught?
I feel safe in the Apple Store, the Police Station, on the other hand, is very scary.
Never heard of something similar in a Microsoft store .
Because they call it “Smash and return…”
😂😂😂
Good guy with a gun? Say it ain’t so, Apple. Will they be armed with the Apple water pistol emoji? Will POC have a safe space? What’s next, ICE? These are questions demanding answers Tim!
end:Sarcasm:end
Good guy with a gun stops a bad guy with a gun. No sarcasm intended …
Statistically, “good guy with a gun” is more likely to accidentally shoot some random person than to stop a bad guy. Go look up the random accidents statistics versus the “saved everyone because he has a big compensation-for-something stick.”
Please link to the statistics …
As a starting point, there is quite a lot of data on the National Bureau of Economic Research website.
What both of you pinheads do not understand. Data is selective. Data is incomplete. Data is biased. Data is a short term shot in the dark …
“What you see and what you read is not the truth.” Who are you going to believe, an unindicted co-conspirator or your lying eyes?
Prove it …
I don’t have to prove it. I was quoting the President of the United States of America. Ask him to prove his assertion that evidence-based reasoning is inferior to taking his word for something that contradicts the evidence.
Our esteemed hard working president is CORRECT! Pisses you off, so what …
They’re uniformed, but not packing in the stores I’ve been in. And really, in those close quarters, if a cop needs a gun, there’s something wrong with the cops 🙂
You could not be more Wrong Again. You never heard of the gang technique “bum’s rush?” When you are surrounded and rushed by many crooks in some instances even a gun will not help you, particularly if an attacker comes from behind …
First: That’s not what the idiom “bum’s rush” means.
Second, a single officer standing in front of closed doors (it only takes a couple seconds to close those doors) can stop multiple thieves. The officer really only needs to slow them down until store employees can, enmass, deter them long enough for the officer to arrest them for theft.
Third, if the attack is planned in such detail and abandon as to actually, directly attack the officer (from the front or from behind), then there are significantly greater charges that can be brought against the theives.
Fourth, firing a weapon in such an enclosed area with many dozens of innocent bystanders has an extremely good chance of one of those bystanders getting shot. This is NOT something either the police departments or Apple wants to happen.
“First: That’s not what the idiom “bum’s rush” means.”
Technically you are correct. I have a black friend who is a bouncer at a high profile club, and after the other bouncer threw a guy out his friends surrounded him in the parking lot and beat him to death. So possibly, the definition needs an upgrade.
“Fourth, firing a weapon in such an enclosed area with many dozens of innocent bystanders has an extremely good chance of one of those bystanders getting shot.”
Well, a well trained officer firing at a criminal in an enclosed area will more times than not HIT THE TARGET! So your fear mongering point is moot and just another anti-gun leftist hysteria propaganda …
You guys hit the nail on the head with this:Make the penalty for attempting such crimes an actual deterrent itself because right now, given the rash of similar crimes, it doesn’t seem to be. Duh.
California keeps lowering the penalties in the name of ‘criminal justice reform.’ All they’re doing is making it easier for criminals to conduct business. Thanks legislature, thanks. Hope you’re victimized and change ur tune.
Here is my best and most insightful comment yet:
[This space left intentionally blank]
“Here is my best and most insightful comment yet:”
Wow, ego grande! …
Gee, I wonder if something this crazy just might work in our public schools to deter massacres?
Why are only people of color shown in the surveillance videos? That’s straight up racial discrimination. We should all kneel during the national anthem for this injustice.
Amen.
“Why are only people of color shown in the surveillance videos?“
Only a liberal activist would embrace such unscientific opinionated BS 🐂💩 …
I think you failed to grasp the true meaning of that post and its sarcasm…
Are you certain it is “sacasm?” …
I feel safe in an Apple store, and most anywhere else for that matter. I have a concealed carry permit. I wouldn’t use it to protest merchandise, but wouldn’t hesitate for a second to kill someone trying to harm innocent people. If that bothers you, too bad.
What about theft that doesn’t involve injuring anyone? Would you murder people to protect property?
Just checking.
Yes he would.
Murder, I would hope not. Homicide, yes. There is a difference, as I’m sure that you understand. As a response to your question, information and items that are classified as Top Secret are deemed to pose a “grave threat” to the security of the nation if they are revealed or compromised. That’s why deadly force is authorized to protect such items. Another example would be the attempted theft of an airliner. It’s property, but even an attempt to correctly fly it by an untrained individual would pose a significant threat to public safety. Another example would be items that are worth such extraordinary amounts of money, such as the gold reserves, that the theft of such items would also warrant protection by deadly force. As for iPhones, nope, that’s beneath my personal threshold. But a carjacking where there are innocent people involved as collateral kidnapping victims, yep. My professional history allowed me to see, up close, that some people just need killin’.
In Texas, which is a pretty conservative jurisdiction, the use of force is considered justified to protect property. The use of deadly force, including the use of a firearm, is only legally justified to the extent that the shooter reasonably believes that it was necessary to counter an imminent danger of death or serious bodily injury to a human being. Peace officers—much less private citizens—cannot use deadly force to protect property or prevent escape, absent a reasonable belief that human life is at risk.
Only two out of every eleven American gun homicides involve someone who shot a stranger. Eight of the victims are killed by someone they know, such as a former boyfriend, a family member, or a coworker. The eleventh gun fatality is shot by a peace officer. America ranks fourth in the world in the number of gun homicides and ranks even higher for gun suicides. We also have an unusually high firearm accident rate. Deaths would be much higher if we lowered the threshold for the lawful use of force.
Every year two to three times more people are killed in vehicle accidents. Ya know, where you have to pass a drivers test, register the vehicle with the government, pay taxes and insurance.
Also, well over 50% of gun deaths yearly are suicides. Get a grip and tell the whole truth selective facts liberal activist …
Yeah, in our lovely state of California, the libs have reduced or eliminated penalties for petty theft, raising the threshold from $400 to I believe something like 1G, so they basically told criminals that it is free game on law abiding citizens for them to steal your stuff. And that my friends is why I carry my Glock now at all times.
Little Man…..
You have a choice. You can choose to be a victim and sit back and take it, or you can choose to control your own destiny. You most llkely are of the first choice D.
Ya know, it is unbelievable to me when public officials pass laws to aid the criminals and weaken cititizen protections. Everyone has a problem with this except the loony left mining for votes …
Go to jail. That is all.