'Flash mob' robbers hit convenience stores -- in Minnesota

[AirborneSapper7]

Mob robbers hit convenience stores in St. Paul

7:54 PM, Feb 22, 2011
7 comments
Video at the link:


Police investigate mob robbery in St. Paul

GOLODEN VALLEY, Minn. -- Les Johnson runs what could be one of the busiest convenience stores in the west metro.

"It gets pretty hectic," says Les.

With so many people coming and going, Les and his employees are vigilant. Any item stolen is a loss.

"If someone is in the store for a long time, they're usually up to no good. It's a convenience store...people want to get in and get out as fast as they can," says Les.

But what do you do when a crowd comes in all at once? And it's not just any crowd, but a crowd with a plan to rob the place.

On Saturday, St. Paul police say 50 kids swarmed a Holiday store on Wabasha, a so-called mob theft or mob robbery. They stormed in together, their numbers overwhelming and just started stealing.

"They steal your basic convenience store type of goods and run out," says St. Paul Police Department spokesperson Andy Skoogman.

It's the second incident like it in St. Paul in less than six months. Last fall, surveillance cameras at a BP station on Lexington captured some 20 kids coming into the store at the same time. They stole merchandise and one of them assaulted the clerk on the way out.

Police worry about this kind of mob behavior because there have been similar incidents in other cities.

As for the incident at the Wabasha Holiday, investigators say surveillance images will help them identify mob members. They cited at least 20 of them for curfew violations that night, but more serious charges are possible with the kind of mob mentality police say could get even more dangerous for both workers and customers.

"The inclination might be to try to stop it. We don't want people to do that. We want store employees to be witnesses to shoplifting, not victims of assault," says Skoogman.

The mob robbery at the Holiday store happened just before a shooting incident down the street where two people were injured. St. Paul police are looking into whether the two cases are connected.

http://www.kare11.com/news/article/9094 ... in-St-Paul

[forest]

This makes me ill, angry, sad, and afraid. The entitlement attitude of so many of todays young and lack of discipline both at home and schools has caused this mess along with the absence of a good father figure in homes.

Much of our country's morality and ethcs have been trashed, stomped on, and is generally dying out and this is what comes of it.

I would NEVER have thought of doing such a thing as a kid - that is after one experience (I know I'm from a different generation). I stole a candy bar once when I was about 8. The trouble from my parents I got into for this was enough to make me afraid to ever do it again (even though I had a few friends as a teenager who thought it was fun to go to the local department store and steal records). When my mother went with me to the store to talk to the manager and make me pay the money for the candy bar, I think the store manager knew how much trouble I had already gotten into and felt sorry for me... you could tell...

We have not done our children any favor by coddling them too much.