I think it’s time we acknowledge that flash mobs have gone too far. In 2009, they were a hot trend. In 2019, they are literally organized crime.
We need to talk about flash mobs.
The heyday of this phenomenon has come and gone, but I’m still bitter. One time, I was on the Staten Island Ferry when a flash mob took over the whole deck and started singing. I wanted to jump overboard.
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Wait, back up.
For our younger readers, the term ‘flash mob’ might need some explaining. Basically, it’s an organized group that takes over a public area without anyone else’s knowledge or consent. Usually, it’s pretty much harmless fun.
In recent years, the most popular flash mob trend was that ‘Harlem Shake’ thing.
You know, that thing where students posted videos of themselves in large numbers wearing ridiculous clothes and dancing their hearts out? No, I’m not talking about prom.
Dateline: Wisconsin.
I never would have suspected America’s Dairyland as the place where flash mobbery turned sour, but here we are. You’re looking at a surveillance still from a North Face clothing store in Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin.
It starts innocently enough.
This guy walks into the store, which is a normal thing to happen in a store. In this case, though, he wasn’t a shopper. He was the leader of a new kind of flash mob.
Ready…set…
Suddenly one shopper becomes many shoppers, all of whom make a beeline to the clothing racks. Police say it was all part of an organized effort to rob the store.
GO!!
The mob descends on the racks of clothes, filling their arms with merchandise before hightailing it out of the store. When you watch the video, the whole thing is over in less than 30 seconds.
It was finished in an instant.
While it looks chaotic in real time, the jostling and grabbing really amounted to controlled chaos. Shoplifters tend to work alone. They also tend not to be so brazen in their heists.
Time for a before and after…
They didn’t pick the store clean, but they did make off with a lot of merchandise. In all, about $30,000 of high-end North Face clothing was stolen in the robbery.
It was the flash mob to end all flash mobs.
“Ten black males entered the store and each grabbed as much merchandise as they could carry before running to the cars and leaving the property,” Pleasant Prairie Police Sgt. Aaron Schaffer told local media.
“It was like a flash mob.”
Though they did commit a crime, I think we can all agree that as far as robbery methods go, this one’s definitely in the “less harmful” category than a hostage situation.
The flash mobbers will probably be caught soon.
Police have multiple clear surveillance images of the men believed to be involved in the robbery. Whatever happens, I think we can all agree that, as flash mobs go, this one’s an all-timer.
Now when my partner asks why random flash mobs in malls ‘make me uncomfortable’ I have valid reasoning.
No, of course it isn’t just an uncomfortable social situation. There’s potential robbery afoot!
h/t: CTV News
