MEMPHIS, Tenn. — The owners of City Gear are adding dogs and live cameras to their stores, and asking the community — and even the governor — for help as the city’s crime problem makes them a target for thieves.
A spokesperson with Hibbett, City Gear’s parent company, says their stores in the Memphis area have been burglarized more than 60 times this year. Thursday, 13 people smashed into the Lamar Avenue store and got away in just about two minutes before police could arrive.
The wave of thefts, burglaries and robberies is occurring at other retail businesses across the city too.
That’s unacceptable, says the president of City Gear’s parent company, and they are taking action.
Mike Longo, president and CEO of parent company Hibbett, released a statement Saturday outlining some of the stores’ crime prevention plan, and saying more details will be released next week:
– Mike Longo
- The situation in the Memphis community with regard to crime is intolerable. A handful of criminals are causing problems for all the citizens and business owners. This is unacceptable.
- Hibbett | City Gear is taking action to protect our employees and our property. We implemented some non-lethal means such as canines, live camera monitoring with the MPD, funding Crime Stoppers, etc as stop gap measures until our city officials can take the actions necessary to regain control.
- But we cannot do this alone, so we are working closely with other business leaders, the District Attorney’s office, and the Memphis Police Department to enact some changes with an immediate impact. We expect to have this plan finalized shortly and should be able to publicize it next week.
- Additionally, we are asking the Governor to make the augmented Tennessee Highway Patrol in Shelby County permanent.
- Together we can solve this problem in our community. We need to come together and take action now.
Crimestoppers recently announced they were offering an extra $7,500 for any tips that would help police catch the people responsible for the burglaries.
