The shoplifting at the Tanger Outlets out in Antioch has been out of control for quite some time. Pretty much from the moment it opened last year, Tik Toks started popping up of groups of people in ski masks bombarding stores, filling bags with as much merch as possible, and fleeing the scene. I’ve been out there once so far and it was a delightful stroll. But yeah, this shit also crosses my mind every time we’re in the area and think about stopping. So, I can see how that’s a problem for Tanger Outlets. The more stuff like this hits the airwaves, the more people are going to be apprehensive about shopping out there. But, the latest robbery story to come out of that shopping center damn near put my jaw on the floor. Check out this wild ass video from WSMV before you keep reading this piece.
You watched it? Good. Okay. So, let’s break this thing down into four events:
- People in ski masks rob the perfume store.
- Concerned citizens rise up to barricade them into the store.
- Police are called out to the scene because of a fight at Victoria’s Secret.
- The robbers bust out the back door and make the decision to run out onto I-24 to carjack someone and get away.
This is such a fucking crazy turn of events. I mean, WSMV shows the footage of these people running out onto the interstate. I can’t believe it. At what level of panic do you have to be at to run out onto the highway? They’re running alongside it for a bit before they eventually just jump out into a lane and take someone’s vehicle. You know how pissed I would be if that happened to me? Tough day.
Personally, I’m gonna let those robbers do their thing and I’m gettin’ the hell out of dodge. I’m not a damn bounty hunter. I don’t know how serious these robbers are, and I’m definitely not risking my life out of loyalty to Perfumania (no offense to Perfumania). I worked retail as my first job out of college and the first thing my manager told me was that if I caught someone stealing, just let ’em go. You don’t know what they’re capable of and nothing in the store is worth risking your life over. So, while these good samaritans may have had the best of intentions…and maybe they were fed up with not being able to go to their local mall without worrying about a group of people hijacking the place…but Y’ALL…we gotta be careful in these streets these days. I promise you you don’t have to be a hero for some corporate chain.
The original Tik Tok is wild, too – apparently, according to one of the comments, they couldn’t bust the door down, so they just busted through the sheet rock? They Kool-Aid Man’ed their way out the back of the shop! I do think this would make for an awesome short film, though. We just need to wait and see how this all ends. As for the police response, well, who am I to judge? All I’ll comment is that I thought this comment exchange on Reddit was pretty damn funny:
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Stoney Keeley is the Editor in Chief of The SoBros Network, and a Dogs Playing Poker on velvet connoisseur. He is a strong supporter of Team GSD, #BeBetter, and ‘Minds right, asses tight.’ “Big Natural” covers the Tennessee Titans, Nashville, Yankee Candle, and a whole wealth of nonsense. Follow on Twitter @StoneyKeeley.
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