The Crips Have Apparently Been Reduced to Shoplifting Fabric Softener

By Eric Nicholson Mon., Mar. 11 2013 at 2:11 PM

There was a time when the Highland Hills Crips were a big enough catch that the Feds targeted them with "Operation Greedy Grove" and trumpeted the arrest of several members with a press release.

Fast forward two-and-a-half years. It's Sunday morning, 11 a.m. A youngish gentleman, who might ought to be in church, walks into a Family Dollar on Bonnie View Road. He passes the clerk and walks to the cleaning section, where, making little effort to be discreet, he begins stuffing things in his jacket: a container of Tide; some dishwashing liquid; and a bottle of Ensueno Max fabric softener.

Shopping done, he turns to leave the store, only to be stopped by the clerk, who asks him to put back the merchandise. Instead, he points to a bulge in his waistband that seems to be a gun. "You messing with a killer," he told her, according to a police report. "I will fire it up in here! I'm a Highland Hill on Crip [sic]. I will fire it up."

He had apparently fired something else up as well, because he was clearly high. This was odd, the clerk told responding officers. The man comes in all the time to steal stuff, the report says, "but this was the first time he was high, and the first time he used a gun."

The guy clearly takes pride in having a clean, soft, huggable wardrobe. His mother would be proud, we're sure.

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mcdallas

1 Like

Money launderer?

Thomas Yongo

It's because they have to look fresh. lol

cheeseburger

2 Like

Tide is used as a form of currency. Strange, but true.

DMZ3

@cheeseburger Yep. There was an article in New York Magazine awhile back on it - first I ever heard of this. It's apparently because Tide is more expensive than other brands of detergent, while also being really really popular. Everyone associates the smell of Tide with freshness. So people steal it and resell it at half the cost, don't have to worry about it being traced with serial numbers or anything, and if they're caught, they're dealing with a minor charge compared to drug dealing, robbery or burglary.