6 Arrested at Mayfair when Facebook-Planned Theft Spree Goes Wild

As crimes go, this one was better planned than executed.

At 6:50 p.m. Thursday, six girls and young women, all from Milwaukee and ranging in age from 13 to 21, were arrested after five of them met at in Mayfair Mall during a mass theft planned on Facebook.

The sixth was waiting in a getaway car, and a likely seventh suspect in another car left early, abandoning two of the girls.

The group had arranged to go in ones, twos or threes to different stores at the same time and to steal merchandise by concealing it in bags, leaving by different exits and meeting up later. But when they all found themselves in the Polo section of Boston Store at the same time, the plan changed.

They all grabbed as much clothing as they could carry in their arms and ran out of the store together toward the waiting cars. They had been watched in the store before the theft, though, and so police were on the scene in moments.

A gold sedan that was suspected to be waiting for the thieves drove off when police appeared. Three made it to the other car; the other two dropped their loot and ran.

An officer just arriving in a patrol car saw one of them “with a huge amount of merchandise under her arm attempt to jump into a moving vehicle.” He hit the lights and blocked their exit. The driver and three passengers jumped out and ran, with all six now trying to elude a growing number of police officers.

Some of the fugitives hid behind bushes next to the Aurora Medical Group building to the south of the mall; the others ran south across North Avenue, where one, the driver, was found hiding in bushes next to a home. Two more were cut off by an officer who saw them head down a side street.

Police recovered 170 items of clothing together worth $4,178.41. Four of those who entered the store are minors, ages 13, 15, 16 and 17. The fifth is 19, and the 21-year-old was waiting in the car.

The 19-year-old told police she is a “booster” – someone who shoplifts regularly and then sells the merchandise at half the sticker price. A younger girl told officers she was stealing clothes for her cousins.

Police also learned that the 21-year-old woman is listed as the guardian of the 13- and 16-year-old girls, even though she gave a different address.

Officers described the scene around the car in the aftermath of the event: a trail of about 50 articles of clothing leading to the abandoned getaway car, the car sitting with all four doors wide open, the seats piled and spilling out with more than 100 more pieces of clothing – most of it in infants and small children's sizes.