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Comedian Michael Rapaport wasnt joking when he expressed shock as an apparent shoplifter filled his bags and casually pranced out of a Manhattan Rite Aid without paying a cent.

I cant believe Im seeing this st, Rapaport says on his video of the purported crook, who cheerfully asks the stores security guard, Sup?

Frankly, the comic shouldnt have been surprised: Retail theft has soared, with nearly 44,000 reports of it last year a 36% increase over 2020. The Post filmed another thief in the act at a Rite Aid at 8th Avenue and 50th Street in Manhattan last week, with the perp so cavalier that he spoke openly about it to our reporter, admitting hes been hitting stores for months without getting arrested.

Last year, The Post reported that 22-year-old Isaac Rodriguez had been nabbed for shoplifting 46 times in the first 10 months of 2021 alone; 77 others with 20 or more retail-theft charges are out on the streets.

Fact is, these petty thieves rarely get arrested, and when they are, theyre generally freed within hours and prosecutors often drop the case. Which leaves drugstores, which offer many small necessities, ripe for the picking.

Now retailers must brace for even more theft, especially in Manhattan, where District Attorney Alvin Bragg has vowed to keep such bandits from ever seeing the inside of a jail cell.

Yet retail thievery takes a toll: Our reporters found empty shelves at a dozen CVS, Duane Reade/Walgreens and Rite Aid stores around the city. Workers where Rapaport filmed say crooks target the place daily. That has outlets boarding: Midtowns Rite Aid at 50th and 8th, where sources report more than $200,000 in stolen merchandise over the past two months alone, is set to close by next month.

Progressives like Bragg think theyre preventing injustice, when in fact theyre inflicting it on innocent merchants and honest would-be shoppers the public that theyre sworn to protect.

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Progressives give NYC a shoplifting boom that harms the whole city - New York Post