It's winter jacket-stealing season again, and the preferred brand of juvenile and young adult armed robbers in our area is North Face, the California-based extreme sports clothier that replaced Eddie Bauer as the maker of jackets to die for.
Especially sought after, often at gunpoint, is the Steep Tech, which North Face sells for $350, plus tax, and markets as a jacket for extreme skiing. But as a North Face customer service representative told me, "It's become very popular for walking around." Ask why anyone would want to walk around in a thermal jacket on an unseasonably warm winter day, the representative said: "I don't know. Maybe it's the name."
A few years ago, Eddie Bauer was the name. And before that it was Timberland.
Michael Jordan, and the slick marketing of his $200-plus sneakers, took the name to a whole new level. (Not that my generation didn't like Chuck Taylor's. It's just that we never felt the need to stick someone up for a pair.)
Last week, Metro Transit Police arrested a 17-year-old District youth and charged him as an adult in the Dec. 16 armed robbery of a 16-year-old on a Metro train. The incident occurred at 10 a.m. Items taken at gunpoint: a North Face jacket and North Face backpack.
"My own teenage son wanted a North Face, and he got one," Polly Hanson, chief of the Metro Transit Police, told me, sounding somewhat exasperated. "Ideally, the best way to prevent these jackets from being stolen is not to have one. Otherwise, just keep in mind that you are, in fact, out advertising that you have something that others want, real bad."
Of the 33 robberies that occurred on Metro trains and buses and in parking lots and stations in November (up from 17 in November 2003), eight involved taking jackets -- all North Face.
"We got one back," Hanson recalled. "We had a kid robbed in Anacostia. So we went out with him looking for the jacket. An agency like ours, we'll go back out with you to find your stuff. And sure enough, the kid says, 'That's my coat.' But it wasn't the same kid who stole it. So we arrested the kid who had it. He said he bought it off the streets for $100.
"So the question for our community is: What do you think happens when you buy a jacket off the streets? You fuel the demand for stolen goods. You encourage the robber entrepreneurs to meet that demand. And you end up getting your cousin, your brother, your father robbed -- or killed."
A review of recent crime reports from law enforcement agencies throughout the Washington area showed that jacket robberies occur on a near-daily basis. Here is just a sample:
On Dec. 23, in the 13900 block of Castle Boulevard in Silver Spring, two men forced a pedestrian to the ground at gunpoint and took his wallet, a cell phone and a jacket.
Also on Dec. 23, in the 300 block of North Payne Street in Alexandria, three males, one armed with a knife, robbed a boy, 16, of a jacket.
On Dec. 18, in the 5400 block of Third St. NE in the District, a male was assaulted and robbed by four males in an alley. The victim was punched in the face and robbed of a jacket, a book bag, a sweat shirt and glasses. On Dec. 20, in the 2900 block of Georgia Avenue NW, two men ordered two restaurant patrons to the ground at gunpoint and robbed them of their jackets.
In Prince George's County, 79 robberies of North Face jackets were reported in 2004, according to a police spokesman.
"It's a sad commentary on a consumer culture based on brand names, where everybody wants to have top-of-the line stuff," Hanson said. "That's what I heard this mother from Capitol Heights saying after her son was robbed and sent home with no coat and no shoes. It's ridiculous."
Meanwhile, North Face boasts that its Steep Tech jackets offer "the dynamic duo of a tightly woven abrasion-phobic face for protection, and a soft-brushed interior for performance and comfort."
That may work well on a chilly mountain trek. But on these hot streets, bulletproofing might be more practical.
E-mail: milloyc@washpost.com
