Of course, the NYC police didn't exert themselves to catch any of the thieves, but the cops in Florida apprehended one. (The situation reminded me of when my identity was stolen and used for several thousand dollars of illegal fraudulent purchases. I went to a police precinct in Manhattan to file a Police Report. A bored-looking officer did it. A detective phoned me for details. But then nothing happened, and I never heard back from them. They merely responded, but didn't resolve the issue or capture the criminals; they let the credit card company solve my issue. Nothing happened to the greedy jewelry stores that bypassed their own security protocols when allowing the crooks to open new credit card accounts (under my name) and make instant purchases. The next year, my coworker suffered the same thing when T-Mobile allowed his personal data to be stolen, and thieves visited 8 T-Mobile stores to fraudulently buy $12,000 worth of merchandise. He reported it to the police, but despite his repeated inquiries, nothing happened).
Questions were immediately raised about why the (overpaid) police--who knew about the crime spree in SoHo--did not have more patrolmen in the vicinity? 20 robberies in 6 months should be enough reason to have more police in the area. People also questioned the slow response time of the police officers. Taxpayers will never hear answers about those things; it's like expecting a dictatorship to explain its actions. (Sadly, one of Lewis' coworkers recently got transferred to SoHo from the uptown store to avoid experiencing so many robberies. Despite being on the expensive Upper East Side, her former store suffered a dozen daytime robberies in the last six months, and she was feeling traumatized. SoHo was not better. Such is NYC).
NYC feeds itself on gullible tourists, commuters, renters, and shoppers. It never wants to improve itself, but it cannot afford to let people see how bad it truly is. (Tell me when you saw NYC's subways accurately shown in a movie or TV series? Instead of glamorously-oversized ones, tell me when you saw a true-looking NYC apartment of typical size/quality in a movie or TV series?)
The authorities never responded publicly to any of the looting/robberies, but they finally felt compelled to respond. To save their reputation, the highest police officials quickly said that ALL OF THE 20 robberies were done by the same foursome of thugs. Isn't that convenient? I'm sure it was strategic to claim such a thing, instead of saying that "law and order" is so bad in NYC that several gangs are feeling brazen to commit 20 separate robberies. Or course, since NYC's traffic cameras are mostly broken (and barely any surveillance cameras work in the subway system), they couldn't track the robbers' getaway car. Weeks later, the police in Florida caught one of the robbers. Naturally, none of the stolen goods were recovered. Skeptics predict that the corrupt police will illegally keep it/sell it.
Since then, Manhattan suffered from increased crime sprees and a horrific quantity of shoplifting robberies. Yet, the authorities behave as if those occurrences are inconvenient to deal with, so the police stopped arresting criminals who committed shoplifting or "petty crimes". Yes, the biggest and highest-funded police department in the world stopped performing another of its duties (just as it stopped dealing with homeless deviants on public transit).
A result was that Lewis' client got mugged while walking to the store to return a purchase. Her attackers punched her and tore her clothing... but they couldn't get her to let go of her merchandise. So, they dragged her on the street, which scraped her knees and arms. Defiantly and tenaciously, she clung to her expensive merchandise. Finally, the men ran away. The woman limped into Lewis' boutique, and he summoned the police. They didn't do anything.
Mistrustful that the NYPD will increase its law enforcement in SoHo, Lewis' company paid extra to hire more security personnel. The Human Resources Department offered counseling for the traumatized/shocked employees.
Overall, the high rate of NYC/American taxes rarely seems to serve the taxpayers.
