Metro police chief says ‘poor policies’ by retailers making thieves more brazen

PEACHTREE CITY, Ga. — We are seeing new video of the moment a group of robbers raided a metro Lululemon store, stealing thousands of dollars in clothes.

Peachtree City police shared the video with Channel 2′s Michael Seiden.

The group of alleged thieves raided the store in Peachtree Corners in Gwinnett County but were arrested in Peachtree City after police said they committed similar crimes there.

The thefts ultimately led to the firing of two employees after management said they violated store policy.

Following Seiden’s original story, he got a call from the Peachtree City Police Department expressing concern over this type of crime.

“This is not just Lululemon. This is a retail industry issue right now,” Peachtree City Assistant Police Chief Matt Myers said.

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Myers told Seiden that it has become a major problem.

“Unfortunately, we see a lot of retailers now that are not taking what we in law enforcement history tend to think are reasonable steps to report crime and intervene in these crimes from trends. As a result, what we see is that businesses with poor policies about reporting crime tend to attract repeated incidents of organized retail crime. We see the criminals become emboldened. They become very brazen,” Myers said.

Myers comments come just days after Channel 2 Action News showed you iPhone video of two Lululemon employees in Gwinnett County attempting to stop a group of brazen shoplifters.

Rachel Rogers recorded the video and earlier this month, she and a coworker were both fired from Lululemon after management told them they had violated company policy by “engaging” with the criminals.

Seiden attempted to contact Lululemon last week regarding the incident in Peachtree Corners and this finally got a response Tuesday.

A spokesperson sent him a statement that reads, in part:

“The two employees at our Peachtree Corners location in Georgia were not terminated for calling the police. They were terminated for knowingly violating our zero-tolerance policy related to physically engaging with the perpetrators which put their lives and the safety of our guests and other employees at risk. Employees are able and instructed to call 911 when needed, and that was not the cause of termination in this case. We are grateful no one was hurt during this altercation.”

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Woman called police after thieves hit a metro Lululemon store, she was then fired The store told the woman and her coworker that they broke store policy by calling 911.

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