A woman carrying a pickaxe robbed a Rite Aid in Venice, California in the middle of the day.
Footage of the incident shows the woman pulling a basket of items across the store while carrying a pickaxe on her shoulder.
“I'm not f------ around,” she says to an employee who asks her to stop while she raids the beauty products.
“I don't want to smell like sh-- when I'm knocking these b------ out,” she adds while putting a spray bottle into her basket.
Before heading to the door, she stopped at the counter to tell an employee she would be back.
“Don't say sh--. Shut the f--- up. Be quiet and follow suit,” she said before leaving.
No one was injured in the incident, which occurred around 3 p.m. on Dec. 23.
Police say they are still searching for the woman. They also say they do not know how much merchandise was stolen.
The unusual incident comes amid a month of ongoing crime that has sparked debate over the city's policies regarding the prosecution of criminals.
“During the first week of December, LA police arrested 14 suspects alleged to have been involved in 11 recent smash-and-grab robberies at stores last month, where nearly $340,000 worth of merchandise was stolen in strikes on an LA Nordstrom, a Lululemon in Studio City, a Fairfax district store, and a CVS pharmacy in South LA,” reports The Daily Mail.
All of the suspects involved in the crimes were released as a result of the city’s zero-bail policies, wherein people accused of low-level offenses are released pending trial without having to pay bail.
Proponents of the policy say it has saved lives and coincided with a decrease in property crime.
“People held on pretrial detention, often because they cannot afford bail, are presumed innocent because they have not been convicted of a crime,” Ambrose Brooks, a coalition coordinator of JusticeLA, wrote in the Los Angeles Times. “They may lose a job or a home or custody of a child, and some may even be pressured into pleading guilty just to get a plea deal that reduces jail time.”
Critics of the policy, including law enforcement, say the lack of pre-trial jail time emboldens criminals.
“As we evolved through this, there’s criminal elements that are recognizing that condition, and are capitalizing on it,” Los Angeles Police Chief Michel Moore told the media following the string of crimes.
Mayor Eric Garcetti has also criticized the law, saying “There are people who need to be behind bars.”
“We have opened up a lot of the city because we’re in a better place with COVID,” he said at a news conference earlier this month. “We should be able to also open up our jails, and we should be able to have judges that put people behind those bars as well.”
