10K in Nike Air Jordans Stolen From NC Man
A North Carolina man had his $10,000 Nike Air Jordan collection stolen.
Bryant Toala, 22, reported the 30 pairs of Air Jordans, to be worth approximately $10,000. He had been collecting the sneaker brand since middle school.
Police believe the thieves broke into Toala’s Charlotte, N.C. home through a bedroom window on Monday night and stole his entire collection of sneakers.
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Toala appeared on CBS affiliate WCNC-TV to tell his story.
He said all the shoes were kept in their boxes for years. He showed the station all the empty boxes.
“I was upset,” he told wcnc.com. “All that hard work to get them, getting in all those lines.”
Toala said the thieves also managed to get away with 30 baseball caps he bought to match the sneakers. All items stolen added up to around $22,000.
Police said Toala’s father was working during the burglary. Prior to leaving for work, he locked their pit bull/boxer mix inside the garage.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police have yet to find a suspect.
This is far from the first crime surrounding Nike Air Jordans, which were first released in 1984. Victims have been mugged, knifed and killed over the sneakers.
Last December, scuffles broke out in sneaker stores around the country when an older version of the sneakers was re-released. Police were called on several occasions.
Customers waited in lengthy lines outside a Suburban mall in Seattle starting at midnight for the sneakers named for basketball legend Michael Jordan. When the doors opened in four different stores in the mall, customers rushed in. All the pushing and shoving ignited several fights. Police used pepper spray on shoppers and an 18- year- old was arrested for punching an officer, according to USA Today.
Two doors were broken and stores were vandalized.
“Around 3 a.m. there started to be some fighting and pushing among the customers,” Police Officer Mike Murphy said. “Around 4 a.m. it started to get pretty unruly and officers sprayed pepper spray on a few people who were fighting and that seemed to do the trick to break them up.”
In New Jersey a customer was stabbed in the mêlée when a fight broke out while waiting for the sneakers. Fights also broke out in Los Angeles and New York over the sneakers.
The sneaker sells for around $180 a pair but collector items and limited editions can sell for up to hundreds of dollars each.
