A few months back, we broke the very important news that Dallas is in midst of an epidemic of hair weave heists. Sometimes, the thieves would try to palm a few packages while pretending to shop. Other times, they went for volume, knocking holes in the wall of beauty supply stores and making off with thousands of dollars of product.
The flood has abated somewhat of late. If the flood was waist-high in January, the water's now at the knee, or maybe midway up the thigh. But there are still a mind-boggling number of hair thieves on the loose, and their tactics are as bold as ever.
The employees working at Max Beauty Supply in the 7400 block of Westmoreland Road are particularly well-versed on the subject. They've been held up several times over the past few years, at least once at gunpoint. Another time, the robber used a Taser.
So they knew what was up when they saw the group of five women, all about 20 years old, sprinting into the store. As expected, they headed straight for the hair weaves, scooping up as many as they could carry -- $1,200 worth in all -- and sprinting back out the door.
See also Dallas Hair Weave Thefts Have Reached Epidemic Proportions
One of the cashiers, who isn't named in a police report, ran after them. She wasn't about to let someone simply waltz out the front door with such a not insignificant chunk of the store's inventory of human hair. By the time she caught up with them, they had locked themselves inside their gray sedan, so the cashier was left knocking impotently at the window, demanding they return the weaves. Another cashier walked out and seconded her coworker's demands.
The workers, seeing the back door open, thought that their message had finally gotten through. The second cashier stood by the door, waiting for the hair's safe return. What she got instead was a face full of pepper spray.
The pain was intense. The burning sensation crawled across her face and into her eyes. For a few moments, she couldn't see a thing. But she could hear the door close and the engine as the thieves drove away. Her coworker took down the license plate, and they went back inside together to call police.
