By Marcus K. Garner
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
ATLANTA — Gone are the days of cat burglars and sneak-thieves. Instead, Atlanta police are confronting a wave of in-your-face, organized and — authorities worry — potentially dangerous smash-and-grab heists. Their aim, they say, is to stem the tide before one of the assaults turns deadly.
“The propensity is there for violence,” Atlanta police special enforcement commander Maj. Chris Leighty said. “That’s the kind of thing we’re trying to deter.”
The closest call to date came in July, when a crew of men rushed the door of the Broadway Diner early one morning, intent on grabbing the downtown Atlanta eatery’s ATM.
They shook the money machine from its foundation and, despite employee’s attempts to lock down the place, pushed a waitress to the ground and escaped with their prize.
“I think they were kind of surprised that they were actually challenged,” Leighty said, noting the same crew had hit other occupied businesses unchallenged before finally encountering victims who held their ground.
For the most part, the smash-and-grab phenomenon seems to be concentrated in the city of Atlanta. Authorities there say they have a good idea of who is behind many of the quick-hit robberies, but catching them involves a constant battle of wits as the thieves modify their targets and tactics to elude the police net.
Atlanta police have recovered 10 ATMs this year and made more than a dozen arrests in recent smash-and-grab heists, said police gangs unit Sgt. Archie Ezell.
“We know who’s doing this and where these people are,” he said. “We have more than two dozen suspects, and they know we’re looking at them.”
The run of ATM take-aways, or attempted take-aways, extends back to late 2009 and includes, most notably, the successful early-morning theft of the cash machine at the front of Ikea and the Wachovia machine at Atlantic Station.
While that machine was reported to have contained $14,000 when it was stolen, larger takes were reported by media outlets to be as much as $40,000 or more during some of the earlier thefts.
“They hit the Grand Poobah on that first one, and that was the one that started the rash,” Leighty said, referring to a 2009 theft in Atlanta’s West End shopping district.
However, ATMs weren’t the criminals’ first target. Before that, the item du jour was the flat-screen TV, as police found themselves responding to calls from restaurants and bars, reporting their windows smashed and the huge monitors wrestled from wall mountings.
Before that, thieves were bursting through the windows of clothing boutiques to snatch high-priced jeans.
In the latest incidents earlier this month, thieves reverted to grabbing consumer electronics, hitting two Rent-A-Center stores within eight miles of each other, in the early hours of a Friday and a Monday. The bandits crashed vans into the steel back door of one store, then went into a next-door business of the second rental store, taking flat-screen TVs and laptop computers.
“We have security measures in place in all of our stores that we’re confident in,” Rent-A-Center spokesman Xavier Dominicis said. “I suppose if somebody wanted to drive a tank through the store, they could. There’s a point after which it’s difficult to guard against those things.”
Last Wednesday, police arrested four teens apparently planning a smash-and-grab at the Nordstrom Rack in Buckhead, and are trying to link them to another attempt earlier in the week.
Ezell rejected the notion that hard economic times played into the growing popularity of this new mode of crime.
“They’re either using this to supplement their drug money, or it’s spending money for when they travel,” he said.
Robbie Friedmann, a Georgia State University criminology professor, said the advantages of the technique are the same, regardless of the items targeted.
“Look at it as a crime of ‘opportunity,’ ” Friedmann said, pointing to the ease of availability. “This is probably backed up by the fact that it is well organized in gangs and not done by disconnected individuals.”
Police cite similar reasons for the rising popularity of the technique.
“The risks are lower and the stakes are higher. They know this,” Atlanta police gang unit Lt. Johnny Flagler said. “You go in and stick a gun in somebody’s face, you’re probably going to jail for a while.”
When the trend began, Flagler said, a person arrested for smashing into a store and stealing a few TVs or even an ATM would have faced only misdemeanor larceny charges. In response, the Georgia General Assembly made smash-and-grabs a felony.
“A person commits the offense of smash-and-grab burglary when he or she intentionally and without authority enters a retail establishment with the intent to commit a theft and causes damage in excess of $500.00 to such establishment without the owner’s consent,” reads the state Senate bill that was passed into law this year.
First-time offenders can get up to 20 years in prison, if caught.
Copyright 2010 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution