Similar robbery occurred 2 weeks ago at GTown shop



Caught on tape. A brazen robbery occurred in broad daylight at a Dupont Circle men's store. These daytime hold ups are going on more often than you might think.

Surveillance video from the G-Star Raw store on Connecticut Avenue on Monday shows more than a dozen teenagers rushing in, overwhelming customers and employees. They ended up walking away with more than $20,000 dollars worth of merchandise.

This bold type of criminal activity happens quite a bit. It has happened several times at the Georgetown Tee's store in Georgetown.

The store owner says about two weeks ago at around 2 p.m., about 20 to 25 young people came into the store and lined up in the area of where all the Georgetown University merchandise was. They immediately started grabbing items, putting them in their shirts and jackets or stuffing them in their pants. Then they tried to leave the store.

The owner says she tried to block the door. But there were so many people in the store that they just pushed her out of the way and kept going.

"It's very disturbing when you witness a robbery because you're upset, but there is nothing you can do," says Dannia Hakki, who was in the store when the flash mob robbery occurred. "I was casually shopping, looking through some shirts. I saw about five kids come on in and they looked like they were doing the same thing. All of a sudden, three or four of them grabbed a bulk of 10 jackets each."

She says security at the store was on break at the time.

"They just literally bolted out of the door. It was very quick. The shopkeepers seemed kind of stunned. They didn't really know what to do," said Hakki.

Just moments before FOX 5 got to the Rugby clothing store in Georgetown, management had called security because they saw some of the teens who had rushed their store and stole items before running out. They also say they have recently seen teens running down the street with hands full of stolen merchandise.

The owner of Georgetown Tee's says she is adding security cameras and is now only letting two to three people in the store at a time so she can hopefully avoid becoming a victim again.