Police investigate whether Plaza gun incident and Overland Park shoplifting connected
OVERLAND PARK, Kan. — Overland Park police released photos and video Friday from a November 2 shoplifting case involving six women.
But it wasn’t the only mass shoplifting case that day in the Kansas City metro. The other you saw first on FOX4 involved a gun. And now some are wondering if the incident on the Plaza and the one in Overland Park Crossing could be connected.
Overland Park Police said our original story is being forwarded on to detectives. Kansas City Police say while they can’t confirm a connection yet, they are in touch with detectives in Overland Park.
“That’s shocking,” Abby Steed said watching video of the six women at what police describe as a high-end retail store in the 12000 block of Metcalf Avenue.
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Reactions from shoppers to a group of women stealing thousands of dollars worth of merchandise on November 2 from a store in Overland Park Crossing on Metcalf.
“Oh so they were just grabbing everything they could,” another girl said watching video of the group of women stealing thousands of dollars worth of merchandise including clothes and purses.
But a woman in a pink hoodie took her time to gather all she could and seemed unphased by the police department less than a mile away.
“It’s just sad, it’s ridiculous, to take that much stuff too is just crazy and then to go back,” Janysnn Radford said watching as another woman came back into the store to help the woman in the pink hoodie with items she’d dropped from her handful after shoving a store employee at the door.
“They aren’t stealing food they aren’t stealing anything that’s vital for them to live, they are just taking that stuff and reselling it and it’s putting the people in danger in the stores, because those folks will try to retaliate if you try to stop them,” Dane Freberg said.
That same day at the Country Club Plaza when Rachelle Adams was driving by and tried to photograph women shoplifting one of them pulled a gun on her.
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“Then I decided I wasn’t going to move and chaos ensued,” Adams said in an interview originally aired on FOX4 last week.
But after Overland Park police shared photos of their suspects Friday and the three getaway vehicles, people commenting on the police department’s Facebook page, our post and one in the Facebook group Stolen KC couldn’t help but notice the similarities. They pointed out the woman with the gun also had on a pink hoodie, black pants and white tennis shoes. Her accomplice also appeared to have on similar boots, pants and shirt as in photos released by Overland Park Police.
“In this instance what they were wearing was similar, the car itself had damage in the same location, so it doesn’t take long for the Internet sleuths to kind of put those things together,” Dave Brucker, Stolen KC Founder, said.
While nothing in Overland Park’s post says the women should be considered to be dangerous, the founder of the page dedicated to help track down thieves says shoppers should probably beware.
“These people obviously have weapons they are willing to show them and we haven’t seen them use them yet but we did see at Oak Park mall someone trying to get away from an undercover detective fire a fire arm,” Brucker said.
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“Unfortunately that’s what’s become of society today and we are all going to have to pay for it in higher prices, you have to put more security in so it’s going to be a tough Christmas season,” Kip Utemark said.
In the Kansas City case police say they are making headway into identifying those people.
According to Adams, as the woman in the pink hoodie tried to wrestle away her phone with which she’d taken her picture, she ended up leaving her own phone behind.
