ISSAQUAH, WA - It took two thieves under a minute to disconnect a pair of new iPhone 4S devices from a display board at a busy AT&T store in broad daylight right in the middle of Apple's official launch day.
At approximately 2:34 PM, two young males entered the AT&T Store on 6150 E. Lake Sammamish Parkway in Issaquah, WA, clipped the alarm wires connecting the new iPhone 4S devices and then bolted through the double doors close by, according to one bystander.
When the in-store alarm immediately sounded, an AT&T staffer made chase on foot after the crooks who jumped into a getaway car with a driver waiting a few hundred yards away at the corner of the Home Depot parking lot. The staffer was able to retain a license plate number of the vehicle before the men sped off onto nearby Sammamish Parkway.
"This really sucks," one AT&T employee told the iPhone Savior. "Is this how people honor the memory of Steve Jobs? That's not cool."
While the nearby Renton AT&T store employs a security guard on-premise, the Issaquah location which is roughly 20 minutes East of downtown Seattle does not. I learned from one employee that today's robbery is the fourth theft at this location within the past six months.
This grand buffoonery took place a few minutes after I exited the Issaquah store with my own iPhone 4S device in hand. When I returned ten minutes later, I learned of the drama that occurred as police were pulling up outside the store. I immediately started snapping photos with my 8 mega-pixel iPhone 4S camera.
I was surprised that I could casually walk into my local AT&T store at 1:45 PM and have no problem getting a 32GB iPhone 4S with a minimal wait, especially since I had not pre-ordered my handset. AT&T on Friday confirmed that it has activated a record number of iPhones.
"As of 4:30 pm ET today, AT&T had already activated a record number of iPhones on our network – and is on-track to double our previous record for activations on a single day. These record volumes may produce slower activations for some customers, though our systems continue to run at record levels." said an AT&T company spokesman in a statement.
It appears that AT&T's activation systems were not the only thing running hard from inside their store today. Thanks to one quick thinking staff member, the police have a license plate number along with a vague description of the brazen 4S bandits.
While the Issaquah AT&T store is left with two empty cradles in their main iPhone 4S display to serve as a stark reminder of how wildly popular Apple's smartphone has become.
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