By: Daiyu Tang
Woe to me when the news relates to something I care about and have worked on, although I’d also like to think that it’s also ‘woe to them’ who cause the editor of the town’s newspaper to get angry. Surely they must know they’ll feature in an article, and that publicity isn’t always a good thing when the lawyers and HPD are also reading.
Still. They choose to rob the Performing Arts Centre (‘HPAC’) where I work anyway. Here’s the scoop:
I was present when four masked robbers entered HPAC in broad daylight, threatened staff and visitors, took hostages, assaulted two security guards and began carrying away whatever they apparently believed qualified as valuable art. This sounds considerably more impressive from a journalistic perspective than it actually was because I saw virtually none of it.
I was upstairs in my office initially doing the sort of mundane work which is supposed to happen in an arts centre when nobody is trying to steal things. By the time I realised something was wrong, one guard had been restrained downstairs, a visitor had become a hostage, my secretary was fighting off an intruder with an office chair and another guard was about to discover that bravery does not necessarily confer immunity from being rugby-tackled by a man wearing a horse’s head.
What follows is therefore reconstructed from the centre’s CCTV, conversations afterwards with staff and witnesses, and information subsequently given to the Observer by the HPD.
It is perhaps best described as an armed robbery. It is not necessarily best described as a good one.
A Fleshlight, a Revolver and a Terrible First Impression
The robbery began at the main reception while I was finishing a meeting upstairs with a contact who had come to discuss some commercial photography and advertising involving her adult-products business. Why am I mentioning her adult business? Because that detail becomes relevant considerably faster than she or I could have expected (also free promo for her product below…)
Four masked people had approached the building. At least one was carrying an actual firearm. Another, apparently intending to produce one, instead approached Graham, the security guard on duty downstairs, and pressed what CCTV rather unmistakably shows to have been a fleshlight against the back of his neck.
There are moments in journalism where professionalism requires restraint. This is not one of them. What kind of robber do you have to be to mix up ‘gun’ with ‘sex toy’.
To Graham’s limited credit, the fleshlight was not actually the decisive factor. Another robber had a real revolver pointed at him, and once Graham realised that the newcomers were neither unusual visitors nor people attempting to introduce him to an unexpected employee-benefits scheme, he wisely stopped reaching for his baton and surrendered, although from the CCTV I can’t say he seemed entirely displeased at both the later bondage of my contact, or the female robber up close with him. Tsk. Staff.
Sitaara, the adult business vendor meanwhile, came downstairs into this tableau and initially reached an entirely different conclusion. She thought they were competitors.
Seeing the adult toy in one robber’s hand, Sitaara apparently began informing the masked group that their equipment was inferior, that she supplied proper vac-beds and shibari frames and that the Observer had already agreed to advertise her company.
I have always admired commitment to a sales pitch, which is why I have volunteered Clivia as the face of the campaign when it launches. Still, Sitaara eventually noticed the gun and attempted to leave. In another slightly farcical scene another one of the masked robbers, also female, moved to stop her. The resulting tackle went badly enough that Sitaara somehow ended up standing with the robber’s head caught between her legs while clutching the ears of their rabbit-like headgear. A second robber then pointed the revolver in her direction and ordered her to stay. There was to be no robber-riding by my long legged friend and the firearm was apparently sufficient to end negotiations over market share.
Sitaara was made to kneel beside Graham before the pair were tied together. She later told us the restraints were poor enough that she managed to work one arm free, an assessment she expressed rather less diplomatically as the robbers being “shit rope riggers”. She was restrained again and, during the process, struck by one of the group.
Graham remained considerably more cooperative. I shall take this opportunity to remind readers that the Performing Arts Centre’s security arrangements are reviewed periodically. Like right now, Graham.
Upstairs Fought Back
Two of the intruders remained on the lower level while the others headed upstairs.
This was where the robbery encountered Angelica, our management secretary, who I am pleased to report reacted rather better to the situation than ‘whoever’ had been admiring the wall downstairs before a fleshlight encounter.
Angelica saw masked strangers coming up from the gallery, recognised that something was wrong and shouted a warning:
“Robbers!”
One of the intruders responded by throwing the fleshlight at her. I realise that sentence sounds as though I have abandoned any remaining editorial standards and begun improvising. I have not and thankfully the projectile missed.
The same robber then went underneath Angelica’s desk and attempted to pull her down by the ankles. Angelica responded by driving her wheeled office chair toward the attacker, reportedly running it across her hands, before escaping into one of the centre’s enclosed sound booths and locking the door behind her.
Good secretary.
Patrick, the security guard stationed upstairs, heard the alarm and came around the corner carrying his baton. Unlike Graham, he had warning and used it, confronting the intruders and ordering them to put their hands up. The horse-masked robber answered by charging him at which point it appears Patrick was knocked down hard enough to lose consciousness.
There is no particularly clever joke to make at his expense. He was unarmed except for a baton, faced multiple masked intruders whose capabilities he could not know and still went toward the problem rather than away from it. He lost, but there is a distinction between losing and failing.
It was Patrick’s shout and the commotion outside that finally reached me through the walls of my office as until that moment, I knew none of this. I knew only that my secretary had shouted something, security had gone running, and then everything had become alarmingly quiet.
There are silences in Hathian which are peaceful. That was not one of them and my blood was hammering in my veins.
One Door, One Bullet
I called 911 and took out my pistol. Yes dear readers. I carry.
I did not know whether Graham or Patrick was alive. I did not know Angelica had made it into the sound booth. I did not know Sitaara had been tied up downstairs. I did not even know whether there were two robbers or twenty. I knew only that people were outside my office and that I had previously learned, rather painfully and traumatically, what can happen when somebody hostile gets through that door.
When someone tried it, I fired once through the wood. I guess I should say that nobody was hit. This is good, because firing through a door toward something you cannot see is, in retrospect, not an entry I intend to add to my professional competencies. Lieutenant Blackheart later reminded me during my HPD statement that an object in motion tends to remain in motion until something stops it. She provided a specific anatomical example of what could have stopped the bullet. I shall preserve what dignity remains to my employees by not reproducing it verbatim.
The shot did, however, change the mood outside. The robbers abandoned any apparent ambition to enter my office and began accelerating their departure, carrying whatever they had managed to collect. I locked the door properly, moved position and remained inside until the noise receded.
So much for fearless investigative journalism…
Sometimes courage is opening the door…
Sometimes intelligence is recognising that you are five-foot-nothing, frightened, holding a handgun and have already contributed quite enough excitement to the situation.
An Exceptional Eye for Value
Which brings us to what the group actually stole.
The HPAC contains serious artwork. Some of the installations in the lower galleries are worth substantial sums individually; collectively the value runs into the hundreds of thousands. The building also contains specialist photographic equipment, computers, audio-visual hardware and other items which a competent thief might reasonably regard as worth the inconvenience of committing a felony.
Our visitors demonstrated a more individualistic curatorial philosophy. Which once the damage had been counted, was no bad thing to our insurance company who were initially aghast and then rather pleased because our deductible was greater than the loss. Vultures.
Their known haul included (use the arrows to scroll):
Involuntary Deaccession
A selected catalogue of objects removed from the Performing Arts Centre without the traditional inconvenience of payment or permission.
For comparison, a determined and substantially better-organised crew could have found works in the lower galleries worth many times that amount. Getting them out would require planning, equipment, time and considerably more competence, which is partly why some of our most valuable pieces are perfectly safe being both expensive and enormously inconvenient. There is also more security there. Just in case you took this as a challenge.
So, instead of any of that, four people entered a public building wearing masks in the middle of the day… took hostages, assaulted security staff, brought at least one real gun, attracted an armed police response and left with a haul whose highlights included a boombox and my posters.
I am trying not to take the criticism of our collection personally.
Blood on the Way Out
The robbery was not entirely consequence-free for those carrying it out… Lieutenant Blackheart responded to the 911 call while members of the group were still attempting to leave. A confrontation developed outside, with one robber claiming that the group had hostages and warning police not to enter.
HPD subsequently told the Observer that one of the suspects was shot during the response and survived.
More significantly for the investigation, Blackheart said blood recovered at the scene produced DNA evidence which police have connected to Mollie Kuramoto. When shown a police photograph afterwards, I recognised Kuramoto as someone I know around Hathian, although I could not personally identify any of the masked people visible on the CCTV as her.
Those are two different things and should remain two different things.
The cameras show disguises.
HPD says the blood gives them something rather less ambiguous. Here’s a copy of their investigation so far…
What Police Have
Mollie Kuramoto
Blackheart told the Observer that blood recovered from the scene produced DNA evidence connecting Kuramoto to the robbery. I told Vanora I know Kuramoto in Hathian, but cannot independently identify any masked figure in the CCTV as her.
“Daniel”
A first name was reportedly used aloud by one robber during the incident while witnesses were present. HPD later asked the Observer whether the name Daniel meant anything in context. It did not… yet.
One Robber Shot
HPD told the Observer that one member of the group was shot during the police response and survived. Blackheart said the blood subsequently recovered at the scene became part of the investigation.
Two Still Unidentified
The remaining members of the four-person group have not been publicly identified. CCTV preserves their masks, clothing, general build and movements, and the Observer is publishing those images alongside this report.
I do love how they’ve got a lead with the operational-security technique apparently known as using your friend’s name in the middle of the robbery.
If you know this Daniel my contact details remain unchanged and a reward is waiting for details of him. Although I will also accept from Mollie an apology, return of the posters (keep the rest of the stuff) and commitment from her and her three companions for a photo shoot that I direct.. it may involve strategic nudity. So roll the dice, guys. You might find you prefer the outcome of my camera to HPD chasing your arses while I keep putting your CCTV stills in print for the next few months.
So if you recognise somebody, tell the police. Or tell us. Preferably before they attempt to fence the telescope.
Everybody Lived
There is a temptation in Hathian to judge an event by how much blood remains once it is over. By that standard, this one could have been considerably worse.
Sitaara was held hostage but survived. Graham survived his encounter with both firearm and adult novelty. Angelica escaped into safety after defending herself. Patrick regained consciousness after being tackled. I remained behind my door, where frankly I should have stayed from the beginning, and nobody happened to be standing in the path of the bullet I fired through it.
Even the robber shot during the police response survived.
That matters.
We have written too many stories in this city where the absurd beginning merely disguises the brutality waiting at the end. This time the absurdity remained absurd. People were frightened, assaulted and threatened, property was taken and serious charges may follow, but nobody’s family is arranging a funeral because four people decided an arts centre looked easier than honest employment. HPD now has the original CCTV material and says it has investigative leads to pursue.
The Performing Arts Centre remains open. Angelica has earned my enduring respect and possibly a better office chair. Patrick has earned considerably more sympathy than humiliation. Graham has earned a performance review.
As for the thieves, I hope they enjoy their collection and urge them to take up my fine offer of redemption through a photo shoot…
There is something wonderfully Hathian about committing an armed art robbery and emerging with a telescope, a radio and K-pop posters…
But if any of you are tempted to return, please: respect the art enough to rob us properly.
