Kevin Bostic
Thieves armed with bear spray hit the Oakridge Mall Apple Store in Vancouver just before closing in Monday, spraying roughly 40 people and making off with an unknown number of iPods, iPads, and notebooks.
The National Post carried word of the robbery, which saw three men bearing a caustic, cayenne pepper-based chemical attack the Apple Store. There were roughly 40 customers in the store, of which five would later need treatment by paramedics for exposure to the spray. The robbers are said to have fled by car.
Most of the valuable Apple electronics are likely to have been out of reach of the robbers, as Apple Stores keep most stock in hidden storage rooms behind closed doors. Vancouver police say that the thieves made off with only "a small number of electronics."
Apple Store robberies have been a recurring occurrence since the company first opened its specialized retail outlets. The premium nature of Apple's products, combined with the relative ease of access to the stores, makes them a prime target for smash-and-grab operations. The new year kicked off with word that thieves in Paris had made off with $1.3 million in Apple products from the Apple Store there. Another more recent robbery saw a thief destroying a $100,000 custom glass door to steal $64,000 in merchandise.
Christine McKee
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Wesley Hilliard
AppleInsider Staff
Andrew Orr
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77 Comments
Response: make Bear spray illegal :)
Don't these idiots understand aside from the security cameras, these devices can be tracked?
I smelled pepper-spray once, from a distance, that stuff is horrible. Never experienced anything like that before.
Don't these idiots understand aside from the security cameras, these devices can be tracked?
They aren't that idiot if they managed to steal so many. Dishonest yes. And the device can't be tracked if it doesn't have a wireless connection. They can take all the time they want formatting it. They are going to sell them anyway so they don't care.
"Hey, hoser... we need more money for beer and hockey eh?", "Yeah. Well, uh... there's one of those Apple stores up north, eh." "You're a genius. Let's drinks some brews. I got bear spray, eh...". http://www.lazydork.com/movies/strangebrew.jpg