On February 26, the FBI Xed, “Higher prices, dangerous products, and closing businesses. These are just some of the impacts Organized Retail Theft has on everyday Americans. Learn what the #FBI does to combat these crimes on the federal level to protect shoppers across the country.” Accompanying the verbiage is an image: two beautiful, thin, well dressed young white women - a blonde and a brunette. No piercings, visible tattoos, or excess flesh on display. Both clutch items which, by implication, were stolen.
The model choice used by the FBI in the advertisement is staggering. This type has virtually disappeared from commercials since June 2020. It's also stunning that this was who the FBI chose to represent the face of organized retail theft. The two women in the photo look like they just graduated Washington and Lee University and got hired into the wealth management division at Blackrock: in other words, hardly the sort of person who particularly needs to steal anything. Which, of course, is the point: everyone knows people who look like that aren’t the ones overwhelmingly committing robbery, which consists of petit larceny (under $1000) and grand larceny (over $1000). This is yet another example of corrupted institutions attempting to subliminally ingrain a history of dangerous falsehoods.
Firstly, let's talk about who is actually committing these crimes. Crime and Enforcement Activity in New York City for Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2022, reports numbers showing a stark contrast to what the FBI presents. Robbery victims are most frequently Hispanic, 40.5%, or black, 28.2%. Asian/Pacific account for 17.0% and whites, 13.4%. The race/ethnicity of known robbery suspects is primarily black, 65.5%, then Hispanic, 27.9%, white, 4.4%, and Asian /Pacific Islanders 2.2%. Robbery arrestees are most frequently black, 60.3%, or Hispanic, 31.6%. White arrestees, 5.0%, and Asian/Pacific Islander, 3.0.
Grand larceny victims are most usually white, 32.8%. Hispanics and blacks represent 26.1% and 22.8% respectively. Asian/Pacific Islanders account for 17.8%. The race/ethnicity of known Grand larceny suspects are most frequently black, 57.7%, or Hispanic 25.9%. White suspects account for 12.4%, Asian/Pacific Islanders, 3.8%. Grand Larceny arrestees are most frequently black, 50.9%, or Hispanic, 31.6%. White arrestees, 12.1%, and Asian/Pacific Islanders, 5.0%.
Petty Larceny victims are most frequently black, 30.8%, or white, 28.7%. Hispanic, 26.3% and Asian/Pacific Islanders, 13.5%. The race/ethnicity of known petty larceny suspects are most frequently black, 53.0%, or Hispanic 27.8%. White suspects account for an additional 16.7%, and Asian/Pacific Islanders, 2.2%. The Petit Larceny arrest population is most frequently black, 46.3%, or Hispanic, 33.8%. White arrestees, 16.3%, and Asian /Pacific Islander, 3.3%.
In other words, the FBI knew full well that casting the perpetrators of organized retail theft as two well-off looking white women was ludicrously misleading, at best, and malicious at worst. In the current environment, it was particularly pernicious: every agency of the current administration, federal and local, tags whites as practitioners of white supremacy. The only area where whites have supremacy arithmetically is as being victims of crimes. Yet they are now being scapegoated as the practitioners of retail theft? It doesn't pass the laugh test. Organized retail theft, or “looting”, to speak colloquially, was only mainstreamed beginning in June 2020 as some sort of “social justice” allowance. Allowances for "social justice" from the summer of 2020, needless to say, were not advanced for the sake of white criminals.
The one thing the ad gets right, of course, is that organized retail theft is a problem. No, "problem" is putting it too mildly: it's a travesty. It has blown craters in the economy. In particular, retail giants have been hit hard. Macy’s, for example, has announced that it is closing 150 stores over the next three years and 50 by year-end after posting a fourth-quarter loss and declining sales. Retail theft wasn’t cited as a reason for the closures but here’s some of what these stores experience: in June 2020, “hundreds of looters invaded the Macy's in Herald Square. In September 2023, thieves with hammers attacked a Northridge Macy's, smashing things and grabbing valuables. In December 2023, a Macy's guard was killed by a looter. Small wonder they're closing stores after treatment like that.
All of which is to say that, if the FBI's attempt to scapegoat white people for a crime wave that has begun thanks to the so-called "summer of love" is nothing but rankly counterfactual DEI propaganda and propaganda, moreover, which prevents us speaking honestly about why this rash of retail theft is happening, in the first place. Whoever was responsible for the advertisement in question should be ashamed, but more to the point, the fact that the bureau's leadership signed off on it is a sign that the bureau itself is blind to truth and evidence. From a law enforcement agency, that is very, very troubling indeed.
