Re: Leading Off
1. The Scarecrow Bandits have all been caught. Suggestion to aspiring bandits: the Tin Man getup would look perfect on you.
2. In the May issue of the “print product,” we took at look at how crime at NorthPark is getting worse. Then a woman got shot in the face there. This morning, a Metro brief reports that on Monday five men pulled a smash-and-grab at the Ben Bridge jewelry store at NorthPark, making off with two dozen watches worth about $274,000. So we’ll ask again: what the heck is happening at NorthPark?
3. Normally Eric Celeste does Leading Off on Tuesdays. But he’s out of town. So today Zac Crain and Tim Rogers should have talked to each other about who was going to step up to the plate.
40 Comments to “Re: Leading Off”
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Jinx! You owe me a coke.
just LOL! knuckleheads!
Two lead-off hitters in the lineup. Check the “So You Think You Know Baseball” rule book.
What the heck is happening at North Park? Well, it’s arguably the richest, highest-profile mall inside the 635 loop. So it’s a target for the Bad Guys.
isn’t it the ONLY mall inside the 635 loop?
Well, yeah, that too. Valley View and Galleria are ON the 635 loop.
Does anybody know the crime rate for, say, the Galleria, which has comparable shopping to NorthPark?
I’m just curious to see if a similar spike is happening there.
If you want to see a scary mall, head over to Town East Mall. And don’t bring any cash.
They added a food court and a ton of lower end retailers in the expansion. It always makes me a bit sad to go in there and see the TGI Fridays.
its almost like the other side of central expressway is full of cracked out apartment complexes?
Darn, where’s a Garrison when you need one? I figured for sure we’d have a rant about rights to riddle tresspassers righteously after the indictment in Kaufman yesterday.
But no, I get Tim and Zac still in a fog at almost noon.
It would seem the Plano Costco is as dangerous as any place..
Smash and grab jewelry heists are very “common.” I was working at the Neiman Marcus in Scottsdale in the 1990s when the same thing happened. Northpark’s locale makes for an easy getaway.
Malls are open to the public and that means all types of public. Maybe we should check bank accounts balances before letting people in?
It’s time to go Mexico style at shopping malls…armed guards with machine guns at the main entrances, checking IDs and scaring the crap out of potential thieves/robbers.
Those robbers knew not to hit Tiffany’s or Richard Eiseman…they have armed security at the inside of the entrances.
What is it with diamonds and jewelry that bring out the worst in people:
http://search.dallasobserver.com/1996-11-14/news/the-ice-man/
You wanta be ’safe’? Live in a middle…even lower middle class neighborhood, drive a Toyota, shop at Fiesta and go to outlet stores. Wanta be a moving target? Drive a Lexus SUV, (leave the Benley home. Overkill), live in a coveted (non Park Cities) area, go to Whole Foods and NorthPark. Do the math. ‘They’ already have.
PS: There has always been plenty of crime at NorthPark, including a shooting such as the one getting all this press. In the 90s, a prominent businessman’s widow was shot in the face at the NM ‘flagpole’ entrance. I do not believe we saw that in the news. The Park Cities adjacency cache was a smokescreen cover that worked well. But after Jodie Dean’s Bible was stolen (along with his pickup) all bets were apparently off.
Like privacy, safety is an illusion. Pack heat and dispatch bad guys with full prejudice: that’s the way to reduce crime.
where do you plug the heat in?
your hand
Nice comments – “added a food court, lower-end retailers…sad to see a TGI Friday’s…” Can we get just a little more elitist, divisive and high-minded. I don’t think I got your point. And yes, I’m black and live south of the Trinity. That good ole’ North/South divide is rearing it’s ugly head. And for the record, I’m a Dallas native.
I’m just waiting for someone to blame the DART line, like they did on Overheard when the shooting first happened.
If I was going to shoot someone in the face, or conduct a smash and grab, I wouldn’t be using light rail as my getaway – for one thing – it’s clear on the OTHER SIDE OF THE HIGHWAY.
These crimes are crimes of opportunity. NorthPark is a smorgasboard of them, because of the higher-end shopping and the patina of wealth. You want to rob and mug a full purse or wallet, right?
The downfall of NorthPark started when they allowed Skechers to open a store there. Simple as that. You bring in low end stores, you attract low end people, which equals crime. Sorry.
You’re seriously blaming it on Skechers? OK. Let’s think this out.
People that go to steal don’t go to shop. They go to steal. They go to steal because people go to spend money at places that need lots of it to buy their merchandise.
Let’s blame Build A Bear next, k?
Build a Bear = evil. Have you ever seen what those little tyrants put inside those hollow shells? We can expect to see a rash of crime at Firewheel Mall any day now. There’s a creek nearby where the ne’er-do-wells can paddle upstream without a paddle.
I guess I remember the halcyon crimeless days of NorthPark at Woolworth’s and Wyatt’s.
Oh how I miss Big Town.
Bethany, you’re simply fabulous.
I am almost sure I took a piece of candy from the Northpark Woolworths and I remember looking at a dirty photo book at the Brentanos….
KC learned everything she’ll ever need to know about “low end people” by watching TV.
Meanwhile, so far as I know, the socioeconomic status of the perps has not been established. Probaby bored HP kleptomaniac surgeons’ wives or Plano teens whacked out of their nuts on smack.
I don’t think you can blame this on the low-end shops theory, or even the nearby-crappy-neighborhood theory (although for personal reasons I’d really like to believe in the Build-A-Bear theory). There’s been a Sbarro at the Galleria forever, and it has a bunch of low-income apartments immediately to its east along Peterson Lane, and has had those there for quite a number of years.
The most likely culprit is also the simplest: the reason for increased crime at NorthPark is probably not enough security presence, or not a visible enough presence. That said, a couple of muggers getting shot in the NorthPark parking lot by demure and pretty ladies with pearl-handled .45’s would sure have a nifty deterrent value.
Low-end in this case is a euphemism for black, I believe. Sorry in advance if I’m wrong.
EDE you forgot JC Penney, Orange Julius, Kip’s and especially El Fenix. BTW, my late neighbor Stanley Marcus didn’t have a problem with TGI Friday’s – I saw him at the Old Town location a couple of times.
Has anyone noticed the hoodlums that hang out in that beautful mall since the expansion took place? With the discount stores and movie theater they are hanging around everywhere – sometimes it’s scary. I wouldn’t be surprised if I walked in and saw grafitti on some of the late Mr. Nasher’s beautiful art. It’s very sad that NorthPark management has lowered its standards to turn a profit. How long will high-end stores survive if shoppers don’t feel safe? A word to the wise – increase security, decrease discount stores and take our mall back!
I can’t believe it.
First you diss my TGIF. Then my Sbarro’s. Then my Orange Julie.
What’s next, Golden Corral is low end?
Aww….right back atcha, Kristin.
Hoodlums, NP? What is this, Pleasantville? I’d be interested in a detailed description of said hoodlums. DETAILED.
Horrors that Highland Parkers have to mix with minorities at North Park! They can’t enforce their defacto antebellum apartheid there or any other place which passed civil rights laws and desegregation 50 years ago.
Dear East of Eden, it’s NorthPark – one word, capital P. Has anyone been shot at Highland Park Village? No. Are there low-end shops at HPV? No. Yes, there is a movie theater, but the management of HPV does a good job with their security. Now, let’s do the same at NorthPark and rid it of the rifraff that has infested it as of late.
Well I guess you don’t remember the old Highland Park Village before white-flight made it into a Rodeo-redux. I reject the low-end shops argument. NP had some low end shops for its first 20-30 years. Funny how the bubble types can’t see how saying ‘infested with riff-raff’ sounds to those outside their anachronistic area.
Riff-raff and hoodlums and Build-A-Bears, oh my!
The problem is they brought in a large movie theater. HPV only has 4 or 5 screens….Northpark has 15. Movie theaters always attract the riff raff…why do you think neighborhoods always fight so hard to keep the big screens away.