Meatpacking Pokémon Shop Carries On After Armed Robbery Horror

The popular Meatpacking District Pokémon shop Poké Court where an armed robbery occured during an in-store event on Jan. 14 is carrying on with an outpouring of community support. The store, located at 415 W. 13th St., had only been in that elite, and seemingly safe, location since last November and the trio of masked bandits, at least one with a gun, made off with over $100,000 worth of collectibles, leaving smashed glass and dozens of frightened poké man fans behind.

Shocked, angered and frightened as anyone might still be following such a fierce and vicious crime, the store’s owners, customers, and the poké community at large are coming together to help Poké Court put itself back together. A contribution fund has been set up directly on the store’s homepage. Any other fundraising venue claiming to represent them is what old New Yorkers fluent in the language of collectibles call “fugazy”— fake— and is not operated or sponsored by Poké Court.

Even two weeks later, the details of the smash and grab heist are horripilating to recount.

It happened at around 6:45 p.m. Video obtained by ABC Eyewitness News 7, shows the robbery unfolding, almost like a pokémon version of the climactic jewelry store heist in the 1978 Dustin Hoffman – Harry Dean Stanton movie, “Straight Time.”

Three masked bandits dressed in black wearing anime-themed backpacks enter the shop, one of whom holds a handgun in his gloved hand. Likely not by coincidence, the shop was holding a community event the same night—the new store’s first—and if that seems a risky calculus, to leave around 40 witnesses, the brazen bandits haven’t been caught yet.

Using hammers, they smashed the stores glass cases to steal more than $116,000 worth of collectible Pokémon cards. The heartless larcenists also made off with $1,000 cash and a cell phone belonging to a 27-year-old woman, according to cops.

As foreign as it is to outsiders—meaning non-Pokémon enthusiasts, who come from many cultures, not just its native Japan—the fact that this is such a big business might be surprising. Indeed, the Poké Cour success story is itself remarkable, and not something that could have been predicted when the store’s owner, Courtney Chin, started the business out a spare bedroom a few years ago.

“These are my friends who also grew up having the same core memories and really loving the franchise and thinking about all the values of Pokémon that we really resonate with,” Chin told a reporter from the gaming website, Kotaku, shorty after the robbery.

“We love the idea of community. We love the idea of trust, and even the theme song’s ‘being the very best,’ right? It tries to bring out the best in people, and it teaches you about resilience and hardship.”

In a heartfelt video posted to Instagram, the organizer of the evening’s event, Alcremie Sundae said, “I am just so thankful everyone is okay. That’s all that matters. I will not let this stop me from giving back to the community I hold so dearly. I love you all very much.”

In a recent Huffington Post essay, store employee Peter Du, offered his inside account of this night of crime. The telling part, however, isn’t the sound of hammers shattering glass but rather his testimony about the power of the Poké community.

“I don’t work at this shop on top of my ‘real career’ for the paycheck. I work here because 10 years ago, this community performed a miracle for me.,” Du explained. “When my father passed away in 2016, I was 23 and suddenly financially responsible for a family I didn’t know how to support. We couldn’t afford a funeral, let alone my mother’s mortgage or my sister’s college tuition.”

“In despair, I wrote a story about the ‘irrational hope’ my dad showed when he worked overtime and skipped meals just to buy me the Charizard cards I craved as a kid. That story went viral, and the global Pokémon community—hundreds of strangers I will probably never meet—donated enough to a GoFundMe to keep my mom in her home and put my sister through school. They didn’t donate because of the ‘market value’ of my story; they donated because they recognized the specific kind of love that this hobby facilitates.”

That spirit of generosity carries on into the post-robbery Poké Court also.

“I thought that our shop would be deserted and everyone would be scared and employees would resign because they feel like this is an unsafe work environment, but it was almost the opposite,” store owner Chin told Kotaku.

“Everyone really bonded together and wanted to stay here longer. After the robbery, everyone could have gone home, which is the rational thing to do, but everyone, we had 50 people here, and they all wanted to stay. They all stood in line and gave their statements to the police, and they all wanted to be here for each other.”