By David M. Greenwald
Executive Editor
Los Angeles, CA – This week, the Attorney General announced arrests and charges against four people allegedly involved in “smash-and-grab” robberies carried out at high-end retail stores in Los Angeles and Riverside counties earlier this month.
The suspects are accused of being members of an organized retail theft ring that planned the attacks and burglaries at a Burberry, a Nordstrom, and a Yves Saint Laurent (YSL) store between August 1 and August 12. Their crime spree resulted in more than $750,000 in losses to the stores.
The incident has become a flashpoint for debates over criminal justice reform—particularly Prop. 47—and retail theft in general.
Yolo DA Jeff Reisig has been quick to blame Prop. 47 for these smash and grabs.
As Robert Hansen noted for the Vanguard last week, “Reisig said the Nordstrom heist happened “because of broken state laws, these crimes are considered ‘non-serious’ and ‘non-violent’ and nobody will go to state prison, even if caught and convicted.”
“The lack of deterrence and accountability in California has never been worse. We are in a spiral,” Reisig said. “State laws need to be fixed and yes, many people need to go to prison for this type of crime.”
Reisig routinely blames Prop. 47 for crime rates.
“The retail theft problem is across California and it’s what’s driving these smash and grabs. As long as it’s under $950, nobody is going to jail because the law says that these 
people get a ticket. That is a broken law,” Reisig said at a debate in March 2022.
Reisig followed it up with a tweet: “Despite media labeling, this mob theft at Macy’s is not a ‘Robbery,’ nor any other ‘serious’ or ‘violent’ felony in CA that triggers state prison. And yes, they also qualify for Zero Bail release. CA needs a reset on crime policies.”
Prop. 47 reclassified some offenses as misdemeanors and raised the level of felony threshold for property theft—but critics fail to note that California’s threshold is still much lower than other states such as Texas and Florida.
“Police are doing their jobs,” says Matt Shay, CEO of National Retail Federation, appeared on CNBC this week, “but legislators have classified this as misdemeanors.”
Except for one problem: they haven’t.
Reisig’s own office has consistently found ways to charge retail theft as felonies. He has particularly made use of conspiracy laws which allow prosecutors to charge felony conspiracies to commit a misdemeanor—even in cases where it is questionable.
The irony is that the Glendale case is going to be heavily charged—as it should be.
On Friday, AG Bonta’s office announced that they filed multiple felony charges, including grand theft and second-degree robbery, against the suspects.
“Organized retail theft harms businesses, retailers, and consumers—and puts the public at risk,” said Attorney General Bonta. “I want to thank our local law enforcement partners for their work in apprehending the suspects in this case. The California Department of Justice and its partners will continue fighting to keep our communities, businesses, and consumers safe from retail theft and other crimes.”
The suspects in this case are alleged to have taken part in a coordinated series of crimes that involved breaking into stores across Southern California, destroying property and stealing merchandise. The alleged crimes included:
- A burglary and theft of $97,000 of merchandise at a Burberry outlet store in Riverside County on August 1, involving two of the suspects;
- A robbery of approximately $300,000 of merchandise at a YSL store at the Americana Mall in Glendale, Los Angeles County, on August 8, involving two of the suspects; and
- A robbery of approximately $356,000 of merchandise at a Nordstrom store in Topanga Mall in Los Angeles on August 12, involving three of the suspects.
Despite the claims by Reisig, the Glendale case was charged as a felony and the amount stolen renders Prop. 47 moot.
The AG noted that they were arraigned in LA and charged with organized retail theft, second-degree burglary, grand theft, vandalism, carjacking, second-degree robbery, and unlawful possession of ammunition.
Lest you think this is an anomaly, the LA DA’s office announced on Friday that six people have been charged in connection with two different incidents of organized retail theft at a Warehouse Shoe Store (WSS) in the Highland Park neighborhood of Los Angeles.
“We will not tolerate the brazen actions of those behind organized retail theft. These crimes harm our community’s sense of security and the vitality of our local businesses,” District Attorney George Gascón said.
He continued: “To those contemplating or engaging in these crimes, let me be clear: we are leveraging advanced investigative partnerships to track down and apprehend those responsible. The Organized Retail Crime Taskforce and my office’s Organized Crime Division will continue to bring those committing these crimes to justice.”
The two sets of three defendants were all charged with felonies.
In one case, three were charged with a single felony count of grand theft. In the other, three felony counts—conspiracy, grant theft, and robbery.
The idea that we have to alter Prop. 47 because of smash and grabs is ignoring several factors. First, retail theft is up across the country—it is not a California problem. Second, most of these cases, especially the larger cases, are easy felony cases. Third, California under Prop. 47 went from having one of the lowest thresholds for grand theft in the country to the middle of the pack, but still far lower than Texas and Florida and other large states. Fourth, in truly organized crimes you can charge people with felony conspiracy.
At the end of the day, while I tend to believe that retailers are using retail theft as an excuse for falling profits—to the extent that retail theft is increasing is probably due more to the ease of getting away with it and the social disruptions of the pandemic and its aftermath than changes in the state law.
I fully agree, Good to see you finally coming around.
Please learn how to cut and paste if you want to reference a quote or claim to quote someone.
Please don’t jump to conclusions when you’re coming late to the game.
I did cut and paste David’s original headline early this morning before he changed it.
There was a small error in the original headline, I caught and changed it fairly quickly but evidently in the intervening time, Keith posted a comment.