LITTLE ROCK, Ark — The Little Rock Police Department is investigating after a group of people robbed the Sissy's Log Cabin location in The Promenade on Chenal.
Major Casey Clark with LRPD said that he's seen a lot during his 27 years with the department, but there's been a drop in this type of "smash-and-grab" robbery.
"25, 30 years ago, it was pretty commonplace for individuals and businesses to be victims of robbery or crime," Major Clark said.
Since then, the types of crime can change, including robberies— it doesn't mean they can't happen though.
"It's an oddity for something like this to occur," Clark said.
Around 6:45 p.m. on Wednesday night, Sissy's Log Cabin was robbed.
According to the incident report from LRPD, "Seven males wearing hoodies, gloves, and face masks entered the business."
That report goes on to say, "The suspects used hammers to strike and shatter the glass cases. All seven suspects then proceeded to grab an unknown amount of assorted fine jewelry from the cases."
In a statement sent to us, Sissy's Log Cabin said, "We regret to inform our customers that we had an incident at our West Little Rock store with what we refer to in the industry as a smash and grab."
That statement continued by saying, "We are also working with Promenade management in making sure this incident does not happen again."
"We've seen an uptick so far this year," Mark Edwards, spokesperson for LRPD said.
Edwards added that while the numbers of business robberies have trended down since the 90s – partially due to a more cashless approach at stores – there has been a recent jump.
"103 so far this year have been business robberies, whereas last year, there were only 67 business robberies," Edwards said. "So we've seen that uptick over the year."
And as we head into a busy holiday shopping season, both Edwards and Major Clark encouraged caution.
"That's definitely the goal is for none of this to happen," Edwards said. "However, we are aware that we can't be everywhere all the time, but we can be where we need to be and so if we can deter some crime, that's a good thing for us."
If you have any information about who did this, LRPD has urged you to call (501) 371.4646. You can remain anonymous.