Shoplifting Group Steals Purses, Robs Shopper At Northbrook Court

NORTHBROOK, IL — Police said a group of about a dozen young people stole a pair of expensive handbags and robbed a shopper at Northbrook Court Wednesday.

Up to 10 people entered the mall together around 8 p.m. before about half of them headed to the Louis Vuitton store, according to Northbrook police.

Several young men waited by the door while a young woman grabbed two purses from the shelf, which together were valued at about $4,000, Deputy Chief Dan Strickland said.

The group then took off running. As they fled, one member of the group snatched the purse of a woman who was entering the doors to the mall. No members of the group brandished any weapons and the woman was uninjured from the robbery, according to police.

Northbrook police Thursday released images captured from mall surveillance cameras. One image (above) showed the group of shoplifters as they entered the mall, another showed a woman or girl stealing a purse and another showed five members of the group as they fled the store, according to police.

Police believe multiple accomplices remained waiting outside in the parking lot during the incident, Strickland said. After running out the doors, members of the group got into two cars — one was described as electric blue in color, the other looked to be black or blue. Witnesses reported seeing both cars fleeing onto Lake Cook Road.

"We're not finding that it's a seasonal thing," Strickland said, of groups of shoplifters targeting shopping centers. "We've seen more of it in the last few years. The last three or four years it seems to have gained popularity, but we're seeing that all over the Chicagoland area."

In Chicago, retail theft is up 34 percent since the start of 2015. Representatives of the Illinois Retail Merchants Association, which estimates shoplifting costs retailers in the state about $2 billion a year, have blamed the decision by Cook County State's Attorney's Office to unilaterally raise the threshold for filing felony retail theft charges from $300 to $1,000. However, the number of shoplifting incidents was already on the rise for two years prior to the policy change from prosecutors.

Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx has said that retail theft was the most common felony charge other than drug offenses before she directed prosecutors to focus more on gun crimes following her election in 2016. Foxx recently told Crain's Chicago Business "in many cases" retailers do not wish to pursue criminal charges if their merchandise is returned.

Florida and New Jersey are the only other states where stealing $300 worth of merchandise from a store can be prosecuted as a felony. A bill introduced in the Illinois House in 2017 to raise the felony threshold never received a floor vote.

Anyone with any information about the Oct. 16 incident at Northbrook Court was asked to call the Northbrook Police Department at 847-564-2060 and ask for the investigations division.