By Dan Murphy
Former Westchester County Executive and NY Gubernatorial candidate Rob Astorino has been posting some very intersting videos on Twitter recently. Last week, Astorino posted footage from Westchester County Airport showing middle of the night arrivals of undocumented immigrants. The footage came from a Westchester County Police officer’s body camera, which was Foil’d under the Freedom of Information law, by someone in Astorino’s campaign. There are tens of thousands of hours of body cam footgage that the Westchester County Police, and all police departments, have to archive in case of a lawsuit. The video was from Aug. of 2021, and was reported on by Fox News and the NY Post.
But the more recent videos that Astorino posted that caught our eye were two ‘catch and grab’ videos of shoplifters violently taking goods from a store. We have heard these reports, and empty shelves, from New York City and in parts of Yonkers.
But these two videos, according to Astorino, were from The Westchester, a high end, posh mall in White Plains. One video shows the thieves taking bags from the Loius Vuitton store; the second video shows a similar theft from Burberry.
What interested us most in the videos, and the report of the thefts was that we had not heard any reports of either of these incidents. Astorino has not identified the day that these incidents took place, but after he posted the videos, the White Plains Police Department posted on Facebook on Fri. Feb 4 “It is come to our attention that a video is being circulated on social media depicting a crime committed yesterday at the Westchester Mall. The incident actually occurred in early January 2022 and has since been an active criminal investigation. There have been no recent incidents since then.”
And then, after many comments asking about why the public was not informed about these cases, and if any arrests have been made, the WPPD posted again on Sat. Feb. 5, “The White Plains Police Department is aware of recent social media posts and videos regarding thefts at the Westchester Mall and is actively investigating both incidents. We take these incidents and the greater public safety concerns seriously. We continuously work and collaborate with the property management and security as well as individual stores to assist in crimeprevention and security inside and outside the Mall. We can assure the public that all the entities at the Westchester Mall strive to provide a safe environment to visit and that these incidents are not indicative of the overall safety provided by site security and law enforcement. We encourage anyone with information regarding these incidents to contact us. Additional background: One of the incidents happened over a month ago – contrary to the post indicating the incident just happened. There were no weapons used and no one was injured in either incident.”
We will attempt to uncover more infromation on both incidents, including the exact dates they happened. Public comments on both incidents including questions about why the public was not informed about them, why the videos weren’t circulated as a way to try and find the culprits, and, the same question we have asked–why are there no news reports–then and now?
The Daily Mail, and Breitbart picked up Astorino’s Tweet on Feb. 6. But after an hour of internet searches, we could not find one media report on either incident. It’s clear that the residents of White Plains and the surrounding communities wanted to know about these incidents.
The other exception that this reporter takes to this not being reported, is, what if these two incidents occured in the City of Yonkers? Would News12, or LoHud.com, not report it? Regardless of where these incidents are happening, they should be reported, or at least available to the media to report on.
That was part of Astorino’s message, that “crime doesn’t just happen “in the city” or “somewhere else.” It’s getting worse everywhere in NY and everyone is affected when criminals are emboldened by soft-on-crime laws.”
Another note, for all those who were critical of the security guard who watched the shoptlifters and did nothing, that is what they are trained to do, don’t intervene because a violent confrontation may ensue. But we also wonder with other westchester residents who have posted on the videos, did anyone watch what car the criminals got into? Any license plates spotted? Any parking lot video?
As we post this video, this story has now been picked up by the NY Post and Fox News.
