Posted on 11/07/2013 5:31:15 AM PST by Kartographer
Unbelievable surveillance video captured flash mobs dashing into store after store and running out with armloads and sometimes entire racks of sporting goods.
It has happened at three different Sports Authority stores in the Chicago area.
(Excerpt) Read more at chicago.cbslocal.com ...
saving for later
I’m sensing a pattern with these ‘flash mobs’....
No. They don’t sell weapons at sporting goods stores in Chicago, silly. These clowns were after clothing and shoes.
These particular stores aren’t in the “inner city”, they are in the more upscale or middle class neighborhoods that are fairly low crime. The mobs are now commuting to go where the stealing is better.
The solution for a situation like this is not terribly expensive compared to the lost inventory. First of all, the front windows of the store need to be replaced with very strong laminate instead of thin glass.
Next, create a “two buzzer airlock” of steel cage and laminate. To enter, a person or a small group push a doorbell to request entry. An employee pushes a buzzer that opens the outer door, allowing them into the airlock.
Then, only when the outer door is closed and again locked, can the inner door be opened, with a second buzzer. To leave the store the process is reversed.
This means that the store can limit how many people are inside at a given time, and how quickly they can enter or leave. The flow through is not so limited as to reduce the number of legitimate customers.
It also means that the store can make some common sense discrimination. If say, there is a large mixed crowd of shoppers entering and leaving, on a big shopping day, they can comfortably admit far more at once than say, a group of 50 or 100 black youths who all want in as a group.
Probably against fire code...
Somehow, you’d have to make a door that would let large numbers OUT very quickly that couldn’t be used to let large numbers IN quickly.
Chicago doing it's Detroit imitation? Will the results be different?
Eric Holder’s peeps...
Claymore mines. Let the taxpayers pay for the cleanup.
Fire code is usually not a problem with systems of this sort, which are already in use in many parts of the US. Typically, the back of the store has a conventional armored door with peephole, which can also be used as a hasty exit if needed. If you have a key, of course.
What does happen is often that armed robbers are so stupid, that once inside, they rob, then go back into the airlock to escape, point their gun at a clerk (with laminate between them), and demand to be let out. Not only won’t the bullets go through the laminate, but the clerk just ducks down behind the counter and calmly calls the police for a pick up.
I doubt Chicago will ever slide into full-blown decay like Detroit, but it could get pretty bad. Chicago does have a lot of things going for it that Detroit didn’t, so if anything, it will take a lot longer to really collapse.
The “minor event”will be accelerated inflation that drives the peasants’ attention away from sports on television and towards the fact they’re being sucked dry.
Maybe they will do the world a favor and burn it down.
I think a cheaper, but less effective, solution is just to create a shatterproof revolving door that the clerk can stop from turning at the push of a button. That way, it limits how many can enter/exit the store quickly, and can still stop them from escaping once the trouble starts, but you don’t have to buzz every ordinary customer in.
The obvious drawback is that the criminal may be trapped, but he is trapped in the store with the employees and legitimate customers.
“The obvious drawback is that the criminal may be trapped, but he is trapped in the store with the employees and legitimate customers.”
That’s right; the only way to combat this is to have a code go out over the PA when certain groups known for thievery reach a critical mass (like three or four) in the store. All employees then encircle them (non-confrontationalyy, as salesmen, after calling 911 - saying they heard one refer to a “bomb on a plane”) and simply wait for the cops to usher them out. The cops may be looking for them already for a similar crime nearby...
You can't have more than one motion to exit. Insert key (1), turn key (2), turn knob (3).
Once a few are shot, see how many more flash mobs there are.
It’s Chi-Congo ...
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