Another Apple Store Robbery Caught on Tape: What’s Going on Here?
Credit: CBS KCAL 7Toggle Dark Mode
Apple Stores can’t catch a break lately. First a Fresno store was robbed for around $27,000 worth of devices in early July. Now a Costa Mesa store has been robbed in a very similar manner with $29,000 worth of iProducts stolen, although there’s currently no indication that the two groups of young men are connected.
The interesting – and troubling – part of the robberies is just how easy they were.
In the Costa Mesa robbery in particular, the shop was filled with customers and there was even an off-duty police officer outside who briefly tried to stop them, before being kicked to the ground as the robbers escaped.
Shoppers, meanwhile, reported being stunned, surprised, and generally too afraid to act as the robbers stuffed Apple devices (mostly iPads and iPhones) into their bags and ran back out of the store.
Both robberies are being technically classified as “burglaries” since no weapons were used.
The other troubling issue with these robberies is just how high the payout is for minimal effort. Both robberies took around one minute. Security cam footage clearly shows the approach involved: The men ran around the front of the store, seizing every device on display and ripping them away from tables. Each of these devices are small, lightweight, worth at least several hundred dollars, and (we have to suspect) pretty easy to ditch on the black market.
All of this raises some important questions: Is it time Apple should rethink its Apple Store approach? Why aren’t there more stringent security measures to prevent this? We know that Apple strives for an open-air, welcoming feeling for its stores, but this approach also appears to leave them very vulnerable to theft…something thieves are beginning to figure out.
So far Apple hasn’t released an official statement on the robberies, but we bet they are considering changes to their store layout, especially when it comes to all those devices on display that are apparently easy to snatch. Let’s hope for improvements in the future.
