As professional thieves and gang robberies targeting high-end retail stores and shopping malls are on the rise throughout LA and Southern California, ‘Grove Mall’ near Koreatown, which is popular among LA residents and travelers, is a target of crime, which has increased significantly this year. ‘Crosstown’, a crime analysis site, analyzed that this is happening.
According to ‘Crosstown’, 45 crime incidents occurred at ‘Grove Mall’ in August alone this year, the highest number this year. Previously, 42 criminal incidents occurred in July.
From 2017 to November 2022, when the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) began analyzing statistical incidents at ‘Grove Mall,’ there were never more than 27 crime incidents that occurred in ‘Grove Mall’ in a single month. However, this year, there were a total of seven months in which the number of crime incidents that occurred in a month exceeded 27.
According to Crosstown, a total of 278 crime incidents were reported at ‘Grove Mall’ during the eight months from January 1 to August 31 of this year. The number of crimes that have occurred as of August of this year has already exceeded the total number of crimes in one year in 2022, which is 175.
Of the 278 crimes that occurred this year, 203, or more than half, were store thefts, of which 165 were thefts in which items worth less than $950 were stolen, and 38 were thefts in which items worth more than $950 were stolen. There were also 27 incidents of general theft, and 9 cases of pickpocketing were reported.
The background to the rapid increase in robberies at ‘Grove Mall’ this year is the problem of deteriorating security in the LA area. The number of smash-and-grab theft incidents occurring at department stores across LA reached an all-time high in 2023.
According to LAPD statistics, as of August this year, 3,361 crimes were reported at department stores in the LA area alone.
Accordingly, the LAPD and various agencies collaborated to form a theft crime task force last August, and this organization reportedly arrested 40 theft suspects as of September 19.