Mob of Thieves Swarms Las Vegas Convenience Store

Caught on camera, a mob of young people bombarded the City Stop convenience store on Sunset Road and Pecos Road and stole $600 in merchandise.

"It became a feeding frenzy," said City Stop owner Jon Athey. "They were in the store for three minutes and 30 seconds… It's a pretty scary thing."

Athey says the crowd darted in and snatched numerous items from the store. "Beer to jerky to candy bars to soda, whatever hit their fancy… potato chips," he said.

Athey says this tactic is known as a "swarm". After 42 years in the convenience store business, Athey says this crime stands out.

If you walk into a convenience store, you expect every move to be recorded on camera. Surveillance cameras in every direction, however, didn't stop this crew.

"Now, you're seeing droves swarming in the front doors - right here - as fast as they can come in," Athey said as he watched the surveillance video. "You can see them milling around by the beer doors. Now, you're going to see them start selecting products they're putting in their coat pockets. They're putting it down their pants."

Agreed. I was born and raised in Las Vegas, and lived there for decades, and my father before that too. He was from just outside Las Vegas (which, as you probably know, Las Vegas proper, is quite small, but the metro area, quite large). He lived in North Las Vegas and Sunrise Manor for nearly 50 years, as an adult. A few years back, he got out, growing up, there were shots fired every now and then on our street (Originally by the base, we were empty, but the urban area sprawled around us). After I was an adult, my parents lived a few years, same house, but once the shots fired were nightly, they decided it was time to move (About 7 years ago), then about 5 years ago, I left too.

When my dad was a kid (40’s and 50’s), and to a lesser extent, when I was a kid, Las Vegas (Metro area, as a whole), was very very different. Even the climate has changed there, due to the asphalt being everywhere, and all the lawn waterings. When I was a kid, it rained maybe 4 or so times a year, now it seems more often. And the Summer nights cooled down to the 60’s/70’s (50’s and 60’s my dad tells me when he was younger), now it can be 100º after midnight.

Without a “let the good times roll” economy or the debt driven facsimilie of one, Las Vegas is toast. All the dairymen are long gone, and the tech/telecommunications industry has been outsourced. In my opinion, there is little left in Las Vegas to make opne want to live there (Visit, sure, year-round, I think not). I still love Las Vegas, and think of it as “Home” in a way, but I’ve moved out, to a rural area in another state. I dislike aspects here, but I never want to live in a place Like Las Vegas was 10 years ago, let alone today.

It used to be a place that people from all over flocked to. Now it’s in a kind of cannibalistic death spiral. Without new innovation or frequent and loose walleted visitors, the fish (both people and economic wise), are just going to eat one another until there’s one big fish left, and that too will die. There seems to be little to drive anyone to stay there, of myself and my many siblings, only one still lives in the Vegas Area, and she has a summer home/cabin elsewhere.

And as the city is so sprawled out, even Las Vegas and $4 a gallon gas don’t mix. I cannot even fathom $8 a gallon gas. Yikes!

You pretty much described what happened in the Phoenix metro area as well, over the last 30+ or so years. It's turned into a giant asphalt less productive urban jungle, at the expense of losing our farms, groves, and dairies. Most everything now is imported (food) or outsourced (jobs), not a good climate for a sustainable area, especially for a desert one.

Those were decent times what you describe, back when people still knew how to say "thank you" and "please."

1) Someone in the “community” is “organizing” these thugs.
2) Confiscate their cell phones if they are caught and check their text and voice messages.
3) Pass a law that carries a mandatory jail sentence if a cell phone is used to coordinate these acts.
4) For the store “mob” robberies, equip the exit doors with a dye that doesn’t come off for days, no matter how hard they scrub. The kind banks use.
Make it White dye as that would be ironic and spray them with it as they leave, marking them and also ruining any clothing or other items they’ve stolen.
5) Ban these thugs from retail stores for a period of several years if convicted.
6) Before they change their tactics to home invasions, buy yourself a home-defense weapon if you don’t have one.
A Maverick 88, which is made by Mossberg and is basically a Mossberg 500 copy can be had for a little over $200.00, not including transfer fees.

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