Another Bay Area Camera Shop Robbed

This time it was a Mike's Camera in Pleasant Hill...

Bolder and bolder. Probably the activity shifted that direction after security was beefed up in nearby downtown Walnut Creek due to the same modus operandi. These are mainly organized gangs. Hopefully, the store kept serial number listings of everything for sale. Few do; but it's often the ONLY way to indisputably prove to a jury that what has been found or recovered was indeed specifically stolen. Armed robbery, of course, carries much stiffer penalties than just shoplifting. But as long as run-out-the-door shoplifting gets treated as a mere misdemeanor, those people only get bolder, and graduate into store smash and grabs, which then often inevitably graduate into armed robberies like these. But some of these rings have indeed already been identified and convicted, some with millions of dollars worth of stolen inventory neatly warehoused, and their own almost Amazon-like web sales operations.

I had to deal with it before I retired from contractor equipment distribution. Entire incoming truckloads were sometimes heisted, and then fenced through actual storefronts and websites selling only stolen goods, but made to look legit to the public. The ruse only works so long until someone in a police detective dept finally just gets plain fed up with their blatant overconfidence, and an arrest is made. 12 yr sentences were typical, for the ringleader fences that is. Trying to punish the junkies themselves who work for them just doesn't accomplish much unless they're willing to be helped get out of that whole addiction-theft-addiction cycle. Sad, but some do succeed while they still have time to rebuild some dignity in their lives.

Crime in Walnut Creek? Boy oh boy, things have really changed since I lived in S.F. This sort of behavior is related to the society we live in, which is why I fled from Albuquerque. Punishment after the crime's committed is like closing the barn door after the cow has already escaped. We could always send criminals to an island, but I believe this is how Australia came to exist! It ain't working anyway. This is just due to people not being raised right. Mass media is culpable here as well. It's more powerful than we like to imagine, which is why corporations spend billions of dollars a year on advertising. They wouldn't do it unless it worked, and it does.

Violence and repetitious crime are why I had to get rid of my TV. The amount of cruelty, violence and aberrated behavior on there is beyond belief. Cop shows, news programs, movies about serial killers, gun violence, we are bombarded w/ it at every opportunity, even on commercials. And of course our brains react to it almost as if it were really happening, which is why we cry over a sad story and feel good when the hero wins. Watch Videodrome sometime. That's a sci film that's obviously fiction, but the premise itself asks questions about how powerful images can change our lives in the not-so-distant future.

Unfortunately, I don't think anyone can be helped out of addiction (experience w/ this myself). It always comes down to an individual making a decision to stop using, and figuring out a way that works for them. But getting factual information about how addiction works and changes our brains, not just drug addiction but all addictions, can empower someone. The better we understand the physiological reasons, the more knowledge we have, then the likelier we are to make better decisions in our lives.

This kind of stuff is getting habit forming. <<sigh>>

momus - Certainly not an uptick of crime in general in Walnut Creek. It's organized crime and dramatic orchestrated theft events at places like Nordstrom and jewelry stores downtown, not casual street muggings of pedestrians. They flash-mob a place with a large number of people really fast, all at once, and get out fast with armloads of stuff, into waiting cars and vans (those stolen too of course). They move from city to city, all the way from the Bay Area to LA. More than one gang of course, but all of them classified as organized crime, with similar methodology.

According to the other thread, SF isn’t getting worse.

They will just hit him again after restocking. No penalties.

momus said:

Violence and repetitious crime are why I had to get rid of my TV.....

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I'm with you there as I got rid of mine decades ago. What comes over it creates a false narrative about reality and without it I have way more time to spend in the darkroom.

VinceInMT said:

I'm with you there as I got rid of mine decades ago. What comes over it creates a false narrative about reality and without it I have way more time to spend in the darkroom.

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For many of the stories the screen writers draw from real new stories and then amp up the stories on hormones and steroids.

Our local camera store was completely cleaned out at night soon before the pandemic. Also well organized. In a city where emergency responders boast they can be anywhere within it in under 3 minutes, it's more than odd that the police showed up 3 hours and 20 min after the alarm was triggered. The alarm system also showed the burglars had been in there three full hours taking their time to get exactly what they wanted before they left; and given what they took, including nearly all the classic vintage film equip, they knew exactly what had the most value, and what didn't. So there is simply no way someone either in the alarm company, or in the police, or both, wasn't themselves also involved. Doesn't surprise me at all, since I formerly worked in the same neighborhood; and it was the head cop in charge of the other night cops who ended up getting caught for stealing from us!

Mike's Camera are good people. They were my local when I lived in Sacramento. The Sac joint was robbed numerous times, but by people smashing in the windows at night and breaking, or attempting to break the metal gates.

This is not indicative of whether a neighbourhood is safe or not. This is planned/targeted crime, not a random occurrence.

Nodda Duma said:

According to the other thread, SF isn’t getting worse.

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This is not San Francisco. This is a nice, affluent area targeted because of that.

Unfortunately keeping track of serial #s means little as the willing buyers know this stuff is stolen, but don't care because they 'got a deal'.

And I really doubt whether the police are going to bother doing anything to try to track this down. Will be an insurance claim.
I would love to be proven wrong though, as that is the only way this will stop if the criminals do see they will be chased down.

I wouldn't complain too much. At least you guys have camera stores to be robbed.

momus said:

Violence and repetitious crime are why I had to get rid of my TV. The amount of cruelty, violence and aberrated behavior on there is beyond belief. Cop shows, news programs, movies about serial killers, gun violence, we are bombarded w/ it at every opportunity, even on commercials. And of course our brains react to it almost as if it were really happening, which is why we cry over a sad story and feel good when the hero wins.

Click to expand...

I enjoy watching detective shows, particularly the European ones. They usually involve a couple of murders. The detective shows involving parking tickets are not as engaging. I don't think my brain reacts to them as if they are really happening. Maybe that is because of the subtitles or because I recognize the actors from other shows. It also may be because I saw a lot of Westerns when I was growing up so I became desensitized at an early age.