HONG KONG, CHINA - 2022/02/06: Shoppers walk past the Canadian sportswear clothing band, Lululemon store in Hong Kong. (Photo by Budrul Chukrut/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Brazen thieves made off with almost $30,000 in clothing stolen from an upscale New York City Lululemon, all while a security guard helplessly stood by, video shows, as robberies continue to spike across the city in recent weeks.
Surveillance footage of the incident shows as seven suspects, believed to be from 30 to 50-years old, entered the location on 14th Street and 9th Avenue on August 16.
The gang of robbers were able to casually stroll out of the upscale West Village store while holding stolen merchandise, without any intervention from the security guard.
They managed to steal $28,870 worth of clothes, according to the New York Post, with the first thief leaving with a shopping cart filled with goods, as another could be seen struggling to bag up all the clothing he gathered.
Meanwhile, a woman in the group fled the store with another bag filled with merchandise, before they fled in an unknown direction, the outlet reports.
Authorities are still on the lookout for the four men and three women involved in the robbery, who remain at large as of Friday.
The act was one of many in a string of robberies plaguing the city in recent months.
In another incident, police had undertaken a perilous manhunt for a robber who burglarized several high-end shops, similarly in upscale West Village, and made off with $62,000 worth of stolen goods.
Another set of surveillance footage from July 14 shows a still-unidentified thief breaking into a Rag and Bone location at 104 Christopher Street, where he stole upwards of $7,900 in clothing.
In that case, the suspect could be seen lurking outside the storefront before breaking the glass frame and making his way inside, before filling up a trash bag full of clothes and leaving without incident.
The burglary lasted for five minutes, according to NBC New York, with no alarm or security guard to stop him.
And last year, thieves made off with $5,000 in clothing from a Lululemon in Upper Manhattan, per the New York Post.
In August, another group of thieves stole over $2 million in jewelry in a brazen robbery in broad daylight, CCTV footage shows.
In nearby SoHo and other major shopping districts have also seen an increase in robbers and looters in recent weeks.
Police have been criticized for their lenient approach to the crime sprees, however they have argued that policies initiated by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg have left them without any recourse.
Bragg has notoriously been called out for being soft on crime since taking office back in January, which law enforcement have cited as the reason behind the city’s recent string of robberies.
In a recent New York Post op-ed, Former NYPD Commissioner Bernard Kerik slammed Bragg for “emboldening bad guys.”
“Lose that prosecutor. Bag Bragg. He should never be in office,” Kerik said. “Worst DA ever. He’s emboldening bad guys. Harming citizens plus law enforcement doing their jobs.
This past week alone saw a 29.3 percent increase in robberies when compared to the same time period last year, with 344 incidents reported for August 15-21 in 2022, and only 266 in 2021.
The same goes for burglaries, which saw a 33.2 percent spike in incidents during that same time period, with 301 in 2022 and 226 in 2021, according to NYPD’s CompStat.
