PLEASANT PRAIRIE, Wis. (CNN Newsource) – A flash mob in Wisconsin didn’t bust out into choreographed dance. Instead, police say they organized a quick and brazen theft caught on camera.
Wild surveillance video from inside the North Face store at the Pleasant Prairie Premium Outlets shows what police are calling a “mob shoplifting” incident.
“They were in and out of that store in about 30 seconds,” Chief David Smetana said.
Police say the heist went down like this.
Monday night, just before 8, ten men swarmed the store. Nine of them grabbed clothes off the racks, sprinted out and made off with more than $30,000 worth of merchandise.
“They had planned this out,” Smetana said.
He says the thieves knew exactly what they were after.
“This isn’t a group of ten people walking by a store and coming up with an idea to hit it.”
He says they are investigating whether this group is linked to other similar robberies in the area.
“It really is a matter of a number of people coming in, overwhelming a staff of employees.”
Smetana says the men did not go up to any of the North Face employees, who called the police right away.
“Their main objective was not to confront anybody. It was to grab as much product as they could in the shortest time frame they had and exit the store.”
Although the men were caught on camera, they were gone before police could catch them.
“We’re depending on video footage from inside the store and outside the store to try to help us identify who the offenders are,” Smetana said.
Investigators are examining each piece of surveillance video in the hopes of getting better identification on the suspects.
(Story from WRIC.com)
