Because the news doesn't report the truth. You have to watch youtube videos of the thefts to see the violence. Even then, the most egregious videos seem to be vanishing as if they're being reported. Most of these people have no idea because the news tells them it's a made-up MAGA issue or something.
And the violence is never punishable if you're a "victim". A guard who trips a thief will be charged, no question, but a thief who beats that guard on camera isn't even going to be investigated. No budget for "shoplifting" after all.
It's not like someone is stealing food. These thugs are systematically ripping off just less than $1000 of expensive cosmetics, medicine, etc, that they can sell. Some of the videos show the thieves with calculators, tabulating their take and leaving just before they cross the line.
This comes out of the pockets of the honest customers, if they weren't beaten in the robbery itself. The cost of these robberies is society itself.
Sure, negative societal costs are true of embezzlement, stock fraud, and wage theft as well. I wouldn't describe those crimes as violent either, unless by chance a separate act of violence was perpetrated in their commission. And, even though they are generally on an orders-of-magnitude higher cost scale than garden variety shoplifting, we don't normally describe embezzlers and other white collar criminals using dog whistle words like "thugs" either.
> I wouldn't describe those crimes as violent either, unless by chance a separate act of violence was perpetrated in their commission.
Or if they plan to use violence if needed. Watch the videos of them beating guards and other shoppers. It doesn't matter that they don't use violence every time because they're ready whenever they want.
If that white-collar criminal had a gun, "just in case", then we would call them a violent criminal.
> dog whistle words like "thugs" either.
Does that "I'm taking offense over here" strategy do anything for you? It just tells me you try to see everything through a race-based lens.
