A Long Island woman who had just purchased a $3,100 Louis Vuitton bag was robbed as she helped her disabled child into her Deer Park home.
The theft happened after the woman visited Walt Whitman Shops, on 28 January, in South Huntington, New York. She reported a woman filming her as she left the store.
After parking her car in her driveway, the woman was helping her disabled child into the house when she saw a man getting out of a gold Honda Odyssey from the passenger side of the vehicle. He then smashed the window of her car, stole the bag, and got back into the Honda, which made a quick exit from the scene, she said
Police have surveillance images of the suspects, and have asked anyone with further information to contact the authorities on 1-800-220-TIPS.
Store thefts and auto thefts have increased during the pandemic nationwide, by around 30 per cent according to Ben Dugan, the president of the Coalition of Law Enforcement and Retail.
In New York, the police department has reported shoplifting levels not seen in almost 30 years, with increased spates of organised retail crime.
Michael Lipetri, chief of NYPD crime patrol strategies told CBS2 he was “seeing a sharp uptick in shoplifts that then turn into robberies”. Between January and September 2021 there were more than 26,000 instances of shoplifting reported in New York, and more than 20,000 in 2020 during the same period.
In Suffolk County, Ulta Beauty stores were hit more than 25 times by organised retail robbers in the first half of 2021. “It’s brazen, and it’s a trend nationally, and certainly a trend out here,” said Suffolk County Police Chief of Detectives Mathew Lewis.
The increase in crime is believed to be a knock-on effect from closures during the pandemic and people losing their jobs.
“A lot of people were out of work and a lot of people were trying to make ends meet, obviously the wrong way,” said Chief Lipetri.
