Brazen stealing and looting of retail outlets have become increasingly on the rise in recent months in many American cities.
Widespread looting of retail businesses were recorded during the “Black Lives Matter” protests which occurred across the US in the aftermath of the George Floyd murder in 2020. The looters had taken advantage of the protests at the time.
Since then, many cities across the US have been contending with looting of shops and high street retail outlets.
In San Francisco, series of lootings took place recently in Union Square and surrounding areas, including the world famous designer, Louis Vuitton store, a Burberry store, a jewellery store, and a Nordstrom store, to mention but a few.
Police authorities disclosed that three suspects were arrested while others fled in at least 10 different vehicles at the Nordstrom department store, an outdoor mall on Walnut Creek east of San Francisco.
Looters had stormed the store, terrorizing shoppers, assaulting employees, ripping off bag loads of merchandise and ransacking shelves.
An eyewitness in a nearby restaurant revealed that the looters were wearing face masks and carried what appeared to be crowbars. He added that it was a scary scene.
At the Louis Vuitton store, at least 14 people forced their way into the store and made away with over $100,000 worth of merchandise.
Surveillance video from the store showed that the scene was chaotic as the masked shoplifters poured into the store grabbing handbags and other merchandise while shoppers rushed out of their way.
The police were able to recover merchandise worth thousands of dollars after Jins Eyewear, Bloomingdale’s and Burberry were looted and suspects were arrested.
San Francisco’s police chief, Bill Scott disclosed that Hermes and Fendi stores were also looted and damaged.
