This isn't the first time this happens to the store. It has happened on may occasions in the past. These people need to hire some security or get working surveillance cameras.

The crime in Mountain View is getting out of hand. I have lived in Mountain since 1968 and it was never this bad. The police needs to step up. I saw 3 police cars sitting at Walgreen's parking lot the other day just talking. Is this where my tax dollars go.

One has to take a step back and wonder where all local city law enforcement departments priorities are these days. Everyone sees on the news that crime has steadily gone up and it's mainly due to the rise in unemployment. It seems like the police are busy writing traffic tickets to help the city generate revenue which leaves the business owners and public to fend for themselves.

You can't generate revenue for the city officials if you are a peace officer out there trying to protect the business establishments and residents of the community. As some have commented that they lived in the community since the 1960's and back then, the community did not have the crime as we do today. Well, back then, people were too busy working and raising families. If you want to lower crime, put every able bodied person to work or those who don't want to work and support their community should move to a deserted island where they can fight with themselves.

It's Marlen. Not Merlin or Merlen.

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Completely agree that unemployment and the terrible economy causes more crime than "police not on the job" - of course that also mean the city has to worry about money.
@Cartmen - your comment is completely racist, the very definition of stereotyping and racism. Saddens me how many people on these comment boards blame immigrants, and now blacks, for everything has or will go wrong. Shudder.

While every crime is a tragedy, let's not overreact. The violent crime rate is falling in Mountain View, like in most of the US. Since the early 1990s, crime has declined in the United States, and current crime rates are approximately the same as those of the 1960s. See links below for hard numbers, both for Mountain View and for the US as a whole.

Web Link

Web Link

While I certainly don't condone this behavior, at least these robbers had the decency not to rob the customers.