Mall security must become priority in South Florida
A trip to the mall shouldn’t require constantly looking over your shoulder, or brushing up on self-defense techniques. But that is what shopping has become in South Florida, where malls are hot spots for violent crime.
The statistics revealed by a South Florida Sun-Sentinel investigative report are alarming. From 2003 to 2007, 508 violent crimes occurred at the 13 major malls in Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties. Half involved “serious attacks on shoppers and store employees,” according to the report. Most of the victims were women who were robbed, raped or abducted in parking areas by assailants who hid in isolated areas and between vehicles. Many of the cases occurred in broad daylight, and children shopping with their mothers weren’t spared the attacks.
Some cases got plenty of attention. Who can forget the senseless deaths of Nancy Bochicchio and her 7-year-old daughter, Joey, last December at Boca Raton Mall, shot to death and left in their running SUV? But violent crime at shopping malls is a regional problem, and it happens more often than the public cares to believe.
Resources for
