Between 30 to 50 people swarmed the Nordstrom at the Westfield Topanga Mall in Woodland Hills, making off with thousands of dollars worth of luxury handbags and high-end clothing, an LAPD spokesman told NBC News.

  • @LordOfTheChia@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    Imagine being an oblivious shopper trying out clothes in the change room, eventually coming out with your selections, only emerging to a store that looks like a hurricane went through it.

  • @TimeNaan@lemmy.world
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    372 years ago

    The mace part isn’t great but otherwise I say go get it.

    This is nothing compared to what these corpos stole from us.

      • @CoderKat@lemm.ee
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        22 years ago

        Eh, I don’t agree. Cops regularly act on shoplifting and commercial damages. It’s only when burglars attack regular people that cops don’t care. eg, try complaining to a cop if someone breaks into your car or steals a package off your porch or steals your bike. They don’t give a shit about any of those things. But you can regularly see cops detaining shoplifters at any Walmart or the likes. There’s regularly cases of cops being shamed because they bragged about arresting someone stealing food (heck, I saw such a post literally minutes ago on this site).

      • Betty White In HD
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        12 years ago

        Sounds like you’re saying that this was a conspiracy organized by corporate media who is also getting the police to…look the other way?

        Come on, buddy.

      • @TrismegistusMx@lemmy.world
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        2 years ago

        I can’t muster up sympathy for security guards who work at an obscenely wealthy mall.

        Edit: Let me clarify, these men are paid to use violence to protect the interests of capital.

        • @BB69@lemmy.world
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          292 years ago

          When have you ever seen a mall security guard use violence?

          When have you ever seen a mall security guard that isn’t overweight or retirement age? Or both?

          • @TrismegistusMx@lemmy.world
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            2 years ago

            They carry live weapons in some cities, but more often they carry pepper spray and tasers. They also work with the police to incarcerate people who threaten the profitability of the stores on the property. State violence is still violence, the most cowardly kind.

    • JasSmith
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      552 years ago

      “I’m poor so I’m not responsible for stealing luxury goods and bear spraying minimum wage security guards.”

      I grew up poor. I didn’t do this. Your comment is dripping with the implicit accusation that poor people are basically just animals. Incapable of controlling themselves when they see nice handbags.

      • Isaac
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        712 years ago

        Poverty doesn’t affect everyone the same. To try to discount the fact that poverty increases crime just because you aren’t a criminal is ignoring the complexity of humanity.

        To say that this particular crime was caused by poverty also ignores the complexity of humanity.

        We can all speculate until we’re blue in the face, but I agree that lessening poverty will lessen crime of most types.

        • @Aux@lemmy.world
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          52 years ago

          If poverty was driving crime rates, then most of the world (as most countries are much much poorer than the US) would be a crime infested shit hole. Somehow that’s not true at all. US crime is not related to poverty in any way.

          • @dangblingus@lemmy.world
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            22 years ago

            All you have to do is look at the crime statistics and income statistics for cities across North America. Cities that have lower GDPs (less money, less opportunity) generally have higher crime rates. If despair is high, people will act out of desperation. What you are wilfully ignoring is the fact that “countries that are poorer than the US” also are drastically different culturally than the US. Almost nowhere else on Earth has the same kind of income disparity that the US has. You can’t take a developing nation where 50% of people live in poverty, and compare it to a developed nation where no one needs to live in poverty but are forced to do so by manipulated housing and job markets.

        • @some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
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          122 years ago

          TFA even mentions that one of the getaway cars was a BMW. Undoubtedly, there were both impoverished people and people who jumped at an opportunity involved.

          • @dannoffs@lemmy.sdf.org
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            92 years ago

            Making people respond like you just did is the only reason they included the BMW part. I’m in California and there are pages and pages of early to mid 2000s BMWs available near me for less than $5k, which is significantly less than I paid for my car that no one would ever look at and think I’m rich.

        • @vector_zero@lemmy.world
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          402 years ago

          Thing is, there’s a difference between stealing a loaf of bread and looting a Nordstrom and assaulting the guards.

          • @MostlyBirds@lemmy.world
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            2 years ago

            Stealing from wealthy corporations is an extremely valid and morally acceptable form of protest. Hell, it’s a morally good thing to do even if it’s not meant as a protest.

            I’m not going to defend assaulting the guards, though, except in the case of self-defense. Store security guards have no business using force against shoplifters, and most company policies align with that fact.

            • norbert
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              2 years ago

              Yeah have you ever been in a Nordstrom? Fuck that place, snatch all the handbags you can and sell them on eBay I don’t really care.

              You shouldn’t bear spray security and maybe they should be charged for it but at least he wasn’t shot or something.

              • keeb420
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                42 years ago

                i feel bad for the employees who had to deal with it and clean up after and the guards that got assaulted. i dont feel bad for the above store level managers and execs who have to deal with this shit.

            • @Deftdrummer@lemmy.world
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              162 years ago

              So all those people who work for a living and contribute to society, who save up that money to buy those handbags are just schmucks? Give me a break.

              • @dannoffs@lemmy.sdf.org
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                222 years ago
                1. People that work for a living do not shop at Nordstrom’s

                2. The items were stolen from Nordstrom’s, not individuals

                • @Deftdrummer@lemmy.world
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                  72 years ago

                  What a tacitly disingenuous statement. What the fuck are you sniffing “people who work don’t shop there.”

                  Your edgy 14 your old comment is ridiculous. What a jibe on the rich you just did!

                  The items were stolen period. Fact. A crime. Never mind your rage against capitalism. Commit a crime and get put in jail.

                  Commit a bodily crime over property, get put in the ground.

              • @MostlyBirds@lemmy.world
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                2 years ago

                You know someone is a shit person when they equate income with value as a human being.

                Even if that were a valid take, almost every working poor person contributes more to society than nearly any rich person does, and would therefore still have more human worth.

            • Betty White In HD
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              142 years ago

              Hell, it’s a morally good thing to do even if it’s not meant as a protest.

              That’s actually an insane, out of touch with reality statement. There are arguably very few scenarios in which it’s morally good to steal and this particular instance definitely ain’t it.

              Fuck corporations and everything, but what you’re saying is an unhinged justification for an objectively bad action and you’re a goofy goober if you actually believe it. This is so fucking stupid I can’t believe that I even have to write any of this out.

              • @MostlyBirds@lemmy.world
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                2 years ago

                Feel free to explain why it’s not objectively a good act to steal from the entities that themselves commit the overwhelming majority of theft, intentionally, systematically, and forcefully hold the majority of the worlds working population either in actual slavery, poverty, or at least unjustifiable and extreme financial insecurity that technically isn’t poverty because government definitions of poverty are patently absurd, and and who are actively and knowingly driving us towards towards the collapse of the environment and the greater part of biological life itself.

                I’ll give you a hint: you’re actually just wrong by any standard that values human life in any way.

            • @some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
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              82 years ago

              There was also needless destruction. I can see breaking a glass case to grab some watches, but it appears that there was also destruction for the sake of destruction (at least in the video I watched).

              • @MostlyBirds@lemmy.world
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                42 years ago

                Who actually gives a fuck about corporate property being destroyed? These companies commit more theft from their workers than all other theft combined. They objectively deserve this.

              • Zorque
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                122 years ago

                Oh no, things. Whatever will they do with the insurance payout.

          • @kttnpunk@lemmy.world
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            2 years ago

            Everybody has different needs, but imo if you work as a security guard for a place like this AND take it seriously you not only signed up for violence but you deserve it. These companies are robbing us blind of good health, personal space and time on the planet- why defend that?

          • Zorque
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            32 years ago

            There is a difference, that doesn’t mean they don’t have similar root causes.

      • @NewNewAccount@lemmy.world
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        92 years ago

        Of course poor people aren’t “basically just animals”, the OP didn’t imply that. What the OP is saying is that when genuine opportunity doesn’t exist, some people will find their own opportunity and/or weigh the consequences of their actions differently.

        Wealth and income disparity have consequences and this is one of them. Public unrest is another eventual outcome. Something needs to be done about it or something will be done about it.

  • @money_loo@1337lemmy.com
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    82 years ago

    The kids grew up learning heists on gta online, I for one approve of this well coordinated maneuvering against the establishment that steals from its people every day.

  • @MrMamiya@feddit.de
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    2 years ago

    Coming soon in America: Mall cops with guns!

    Sign up now for our 1 week certification program to be ready for your exciting career!

    Do you:

    Believe property has intrinsic value beyond the arbitrary price placed on it by the producer?

    Believe that value is higher than that of a human life?

    Really want to shoot someone to prove your devotion to property?

    Believe harsh punishment up to and including death is a deterrent to crime?

    Head over to your local mall’s security office and sign up today!

    • Rashnet
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      202 years ago

      Your comment is on the nose.

      I have had many arguments with people over the fact you shouldn’t want to shoot someone over property. I’m a gun owner but I don’t carry a gun and I don’t believe a life is worth less than property. The amount of people I know who carry a gun and have said they would shot someone for stealing is incredibly high and troubling.

      I don’t know if it is a direct result of the daily dehumanization of ethnic groups and criminals we are bombarded with all day long everyday or if it is much more complex but there is a real problem in the US when large groups of people don’t value other people’s lives.

      • JasSmith
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        42 years ago

        I don’t believe a life is worth less than property.

        I don’t understand the disconnect some people have when it comes to property. Property (and money) is a store of my time. My literal life. I worked for a year to be able to afford my car. You think someone else is entitled to steal an entire year of my life? That’s as close to endorsement of slavery as it gets. Do I think another should be permitted to steal my life? Absolutely not, under any circumstances. I don’t want to kill anyone, and I’ll give them a warning, but I would absolutely defend my life.

      • @Deftdrummer@lemmy.world
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        92 years ago

        When you value someone else’s stuff more than your own life then that’s all that needs to be said. Condoning criminality breeds criminals.

        • Rashnet
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          132 years ago

          I never said anything about condoning criminality. I said valuing property higher than life isn’t right. I said this in another post a few days ago but I’ll say it again. I live in a high crime area and I am sick and tired of people stealing from not only me but my neighbors and from businesses that support the community’s needs. That doesn’t change the fact I think it’s morally repugnant to want to kill someone for property theft.

          If we invested more in community building and opportunities along with courts and police departments upholding the law we would have less of these types of crimes. Where I live the police stopped policing because they got mad after several officers were charged with the murder of a kid they arrested. In my eyes that makes them the same as the people stealing from the community. The courts here rarely convict juveniles so the kids know they can get away with just about anything.

          While I say I live in a high crime area I also know that overall in the US crime rates have been declining over the years especially violent crime rates.

          Wikipedia Crime stats

  • JasSmith
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    72 years ago

    I suppose people in California get the kind of society they vote for.

    • 【J】【u】【s】【t】【Z】
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      2 years ago

      This happens all over the country all the times I experienced it several times in 2004 to 2007 at one retail store.

      In that case it was organized Columbia gangs associated with human trafficking, coyotes would bring people to America and then force them to shoplift. They all arrive at the same time in stolen cars. The car key is left on top of a wheel in the parking lot in case the driver is caught. There wasn’t a department store loss prevention employee in the Northeast that didn’t know about Columbians.

      But hey if you’re gullible and love corporate media, do your thing. They never leak the videos of them doing wage theft.

    • norbert
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      162 years ago

      A society where a store can sell $2k purses made in sweatshops by children in the 3rd world while its own veterans languish with addiction and PTSD problems brought on by the ever-more-unsustainable quest for cheap oil?

      That’s a fucked society right there.

    • @Not_mikey@lemmy.world
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      92 years ago

      This doesn’t really effect Californians though, except that security guard, rip. The only people it effects is the owners of Nordstrom who lost $500 of stuff they bought from Vietnam.

  • Sir_Kevin
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    102 years ago

    Please do not downvote people you disagree with if they’re contributing to the conversation.