Video posted on TikTok shows several NYPD officers slamming the Dodge Charger with batons while seizing all three just outside the Holland Tunnel.
Janavia Marable, 29, Brianna Grier, 27, and Jahlil Pamplin, 29, had just fled Kirna Zabete, a high-end boutique in nearby Soho, after snatching armfuls of garments from racks and display cases, the NYPD said.
It was the second time in two months that the veteran crew victimized the Broome Street store, police said.
The first time, in February, Marable, Grier and two others fled with more than two dozen handbags worth $50,000, authorities said. This time, they bolted with items made by Dior, Gucci, Sacai and Bottega worth a combined $14,400, they said.
The crew apparently was headed for the Holland Tunnel back to New Jersey on Sunday, April 3, when they found the NYPD on their tail.
That's when the driver deliberately reversed hard in an attempt to disable the pursuing police cruiser on Canal Street near the tunnel entrance, authorities said.
Within seconds, the suspects were surrounded by a posse of police.
Here’s what happened next:
The crew members all have extensive criminal experience, records show.
Pamplin served nearly 3½ years in state prison for aggravated assault and weapons convictions. He was released in November 2020, records show.
Marable and Grier also have been arrested and jailed several times in New Jersey over the past five years, records show.
In one incident, Marable was charged with Macing a stranger after some kind of pre-dawn confrontation in Newark. The following year, she was arrested for shoplifting nearly a dozen items from the Footlocker in the Short Hills mall, records show.
The NYPD charged her, Grier and Pamplin with grand larceny, reckless endangerment, resisting arrest and eluding.
With the explosion of crime in both New Jersey and New York have come a huge spike in both smash-and-grabs and straight shoplifting.
Security guards are helpless under the laws in each state. Police, meanwhile, are busy enough with violent crime – particularly domestic violence and other instances involving physically dangerous suspects – to devote enough time to property crimes.
CVS, Rite Aid and Duane Reade have all bemoaned the rash of wrongdoing that’s been damaging their businesses.
Click here to follow Daily Voice Elizabeth and receive free news updates.