The New York Police Department on Thursday released footage of four thieves robbing a Givenchy store in Manhattan in a brazen dawn raid, hitting themselves with a hammer and fleeing on foot with $50,000 worth of merchandise.
The three men and a woman broke into the SoHo store around 7:30 a.m. Saturday, the NYPD said.
The store’s security alarm was not on at the time of the break-in on the main level, the New York Post reported, and the door screen was not down because a security guard was on duty.
It was unclear where the guard was at the time of the theft.
The gang can be seen in surveillance footage released Thursday as they searched the Givenchy store
One of the thieves is seen with a red duffel bag loading stolen goods
Footage shows the four ransacking the store, grabbing masses of merchandise, including handbags, shoes and clothing, which they stuffed into duffel bags.
Three of the four brazen looters didn’t bother to cover their faces during the raid and have now been captured on clear surveillance footage released by police.
The group then ran away on foot after their theft – and the NYPD is asking for help locating them.
“The New York Police Department is asking for the public’s assistance in identifying those depicted in the attached media,” they said.
Nobody was injured in the raid.
Grand theft — the definition used when referring to theft of goods valued more than $1,000 — is down slightly year-over-year in New York City.
The Givenchy store in SoHo had no alarms at the time of the raid
A woman (right) and three men were involved in the raid
The man in the Yankees cap was seen searching the back room of the store
The thief can be seen snatching goods from the shelves
Three men and two women were involved in the Saturday morning raid
So far this year, 896 cases of grand theft have been reported, compared with 987 in the same period in 2022 – a decrease of 9.2 percent.
The number of shootings has risen year-on-year, with a 23.3 percent increase in casualties from 30 in the first six weeks of 2022 to 37 so far this year.
Rape has also risen, with 28 reports so far this year compared to 25 last year.
All other crimes have declined – but shoplifting remains a significant problem for the city.
On Wednesday, Mayor Eric Adams said theft is costing low-income retail workers their hourly wages.
“So what we can’t do is allow repeat offenders to poke fun at our criminal justice system — and do it repeatedly,” Adams said
“We are losing chain stores that are closing. People who work in these stores are losing their jobs.
“They contribute to our unemployment.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams supported Gov. Kathy Hochul’s plan to give judges more latitude in setting bail amounts for defendants
Adams had been asked by Staten Island Rep. Mike Reilly about solutions to the problems of “organized retail crime.”
“People who say we’re criminalizing the poor — they’re wrong,” Adams continued.
“Poor and low-income New Yorkers are going out of work because we’re losing these businesses in our city.”
The mayor said there are three basic categories of shoplifters that plague the city: those who are “part of an organized crime ring”; those with substance abuse problems; and ‘those who need basic services.’
The first group, Adams said, should be dealt with by the criminal justice system.
Others should be granted deferred prosecution so that their underlying problems are addressed by social workers.
A suspected shoplifter is arrested on August 11, 2021 in downtown New York City
A man is escorted out of a drug store by police in New York City. Shoppers are seeing more and more empty shelves as companies make the decision to keep slightly more expensive items under wraps amid the crime wave
Today, common household items in NYC drugstores are often locked behind plastic crates to deter petty theft
Leo Pichardo, left, a store associate at Gristedes supermarket, retrieves a container of Tide laundry soap from a locked cabinet at the store in New York on Tuesday, January 31, 2023. Retailers are increasingly locking up more products or increasing the number of security guards in their stores to curb theft
Over-the-counter medications are among the many items that have become less accessible because they are locked up in the drugstore and require the help of a staff member, making a household errand all the more awkward
“A disproportionate amount of serious crime in New York City is caused by a finite number of extreme repeat offenders — about 2,000 people — who commit crime after crime while on bail,” he said.
In August of last year, the New York Police Department released details of 10 career criminals who themselves have amassed a staggering 500 arrests since the much-maligned Bail Bonds Reform Act went into effect.
Some of them included two criminals who began piling up arrests when bail reform laws became standard practice.
One of them has been arrested 33 times since 2020, the other has 22 arrests in the first seven months of 2022 alone.
Adams has repeatedly pointed to the justice system’s current practice of “catch, release, repeat” as a key driver of crime in New York City.
Over the summer, Adams accused the city’s criminal justice system of turning the Big Apple into “our nation’s laughing stock.”