By: Diane Benjamin
This is the official statement the Bloomington Police put on Facebook:
There are three HUGE problems with the statement.
- The mall was open as was the store robbed – Rogers and Holland jewelry. It wasn’t a burglary – it was a ROBBERY in front of store employees and customers. Burglary is a break-in when nobody is around.
- This press release should have stated it was a smash and grab instead of saying nothing.
- The police don’t have the right to tell citizens paying their salaries to sit down and shut up on social media when nothing that happened needed to be top secret.
For I think the first time posts on NextDoor appeared fast. I combined knowledge from there and Facebook posts to know no shots were fired. I’m sure numerous hits with a hammer to glass cases echoed through the mall and sounded like gun shots:
.
I have to be a little cryptic to protect sources. The store was tipped off to a possible robbery between 5:00 and 7:00pm. That tip was passed along to the police. I’m told the robber escaped on a bicycle.
I have conflicting information on when the police showed up. If they arrived quickly it shouldn’t have been difficult to locate a guy on a bike. I’m also told he was a black man with dreads who was wearing a ski mask. If the police had included an accurate description in the press release he might have been caught quickly.
I’m also told mall security was present but did not intervene. Maybe they were told not to like retail employees are forced to watch shoplifters.
This had to be terrifying for anyone in the mall when it happened. The Bloomington Police had an opportunity to reassure citizens and instill confidence in their ability to find the culprit.
They didn’t.
Eastland and the store don’t have security cameras? To me that means right now the police don’t want/need the public’s help identifying him.
UNREAL!
Lawless Illinois is alive and not-so-well!!
Can we get back to a tough on crime approach!!
Crime is down! Haven’t you heard? 😂
Is anyone surprised that there was no help? And no completely honest account given? And don’t you know you can’t describe him as a black man, not in a liberal town! Might not even be a man…..might be a black tranny…..so please hold all preconceptions until, or if, the alleged is caught. Just sayin’ 😉
I thought it was all very strange. I came out of the food court where everyone was panicked and I gave a ride to a woman and two very small kids who had no coats anymore because Mom fled – she parked in Ulta so it took a few minutes to get everyone in the car and drive around to Ulta and cops were already there. I could not understand why the cops were not stopping anyone from entering. I believed there was an active shooter. They kept letting people park and walk the parking lot into the mall. It’s so fishy to me. I sat in the parking lot towards Veteran’s to be far away but we sat for a minute to watch and regroup and call my husband and my son and the atmosphere was weird. Cops driving around but so were people. There didn’t look to be any emergency just police presence that my daughter and I were looking for but some average person coming to mall would not have seen until they were already at the doors. The cops failed I think by waiting until the mall closed to post a stupid post about not verifying before you post. I’m very disappointed in BPD.
I am not surprised that it went down this way. The lack of law enforcement in this town is disgraceful and giving the excuse of the SAFE-T Act is also disgraceful. We have a right to know about what is happening here in our town like we used to with the radio and crime section in the newspaper and I am tired of the cover ups. Those exits and entrances should have been secured immediately upon BPD’s arrival and the mall evacuated. I feel like they didn’t take this seriously which leads me to believe like you do that something strange was going on.
Imagine being so bored in this thriving vibrant city you are at the dead Eastland Mall on your weekend.
All the junk that was smashed and grabbed was insured , no one was hurt. Why the false narrative from BPD ? Smells bad.
Spoken like a true Marxist. What happens to insurance premiums when crime happens? What happens to store prices? My dad owned his business for 50 years. Every time he was robbed the deductible came out of his pocket.
If you think insurance covers something like this, you would be very mistaken unless they have some very high end insurance.
Those darn Canadian Amish at it again.
He will probably get pennies on the dollar dor the stuff he boosted… or about what it’s worth. The markup on diamonds is about 6x.
The mall was not dead which is more of a reason your comment is unnecessary. Were you there? And this is America. Imagine being able to do whatever you want. Especially speak.
The Marist progressive democrats have let, and even encouraged, lawlessness for so long were going to have to get mid evil, draconian, to turn it around. Some serious punishment not just a stint in a comparatively decent jail with TV, computers, and weight rooms. The thought process of 45th ANNUAL… are a perfect example of the callous disregard for the common traits of civilization (like not stealing, not murdering, not raping in case one’s forgotten) that’s crept into our society. There’s some great guidance in the Old Testament.
45Th also ignores the security every other jeweler is forced to beef up
Diane it really isn’t 45th’s fault….not entirely at least. He/she/it
(Since I don’t know the sex of 45th) obviously wasn’t taught right from wrong, not unlike many many people today. They probably think bars of soap are just for washing there hands and rulers are just a straight edge to measure.
Come on the initial call described a black person doing this crime Bloomington has already met their quota for arresting people of color so there obviously would be no reaction or focus to this incident get used to it welcome to the America
Sad but true!
This daring daylight heist is being called one of the largest in Bloomington history.
The racial undertones are undeniable.
Brace for more…..BloNo is a soft white bread town
that’s lost it’s backbone, ripe for the pickin’s and lots of picker types have moved in.
Police did tell citizens to sit down and shut up. They should apologize for their post. This is what happens when the libs take over. Maybe they have not heard that censorship is a thing of the past. Why not call this what it is? A robbery? Why not say the characteristics of the person? Black? White? Asian? How tall? Big? Small? Skinny? This is where the Chief continues to fail. He likes to pretend he is the man in charge and to heck with what citizens think. All I ever see anymore on their facebook page is the chief and the community engagement officer. Both like to run around town and tell everyone all is ok. In the meantime, more and more arrests with illegal guns. Of course, we have Molly Ward’s commission on guns which is another waste of time. Bloomington needs a DOGE office. Cut the fat. We the people are sick of it Chief. Please resign or in the alternative, WE elect a mayor that will see your crap and get rid of you.
Oh come on this was just a nice young man with a hammer breaking glass cases stealing the contents or maybe not stealing just helping himself to the contents. Remember if caught we will just release him back into the community
How dare anyone say shots fired just because a week never goes by without shots being heard somewhere in our wonderful community doesn’t mean that anyone should be allowed to say that they thought that they heard shots fired.
As a matter of fact everyone stop reporting shots fired anywhere in town that way our wonderful liberal leaders can say see what we are doing has made our community a safe place to live.
Just saying