I was there, saw all three, brushed shoulders with the guy in the white t-shirt. I called the Hooksett PD, was pushed through to a female investigative officer's voice mail by dispatch (?), gave my contact information, and have not heard back from anyone on the PD.
I was there (Riley's from about 5:15pm till perhaps 5:45pm) shopping for reloading supplies, and after being in that back area that now houses the powder, primers and bullets, I moved toward the front of the store (toward the front corner where they now keep the brick .22LR and some other rifle calibers. I was persusing the rifles and shotguns on the racks, when I heard the sound of a firearm being charged, and then the trigger being pulled repeatedly ...snap-click, snap-click, snap-click ...perhaps six or seven times in rapid succession before a Riley's employee said (and I'm paraphrasing here), "please don't do that, you can damage the firing pin that way", at which time the individual in the white t-shirt placed the gun back into the gun rack. FYI, it was one of those .22LR semi-auto black-gun copies ...it looked like an H-K from what I could see ...something like the guns that GSG made before they were accused of infringement.
Sound effects like a charging handle being pulled/slide racked/trigger pulled, etc. tend to get one's attention, and it got mine. I took a really good look at this character, he did have his dark designer (well if it ain't Wrangler/Levi's/WalMart copies, they're designer to me ...the "kids" and rappers wear 'em) denim jeans down past his butt-crack, with his underwaer showing as someone suggested in this thread. He was a black man, perhaps 5'7" or 5' 8", lean, fairly dark greasy skin, African ...and I mean African as in the continent. I am no linguist, but the accents from the two males that I heard speaking were not African-American. While they were speaking English, it was rough from what I heard, the accent was not Jamaican, or any island nation that I could name. The accent sounded just like someone from the African continent. Yes ...I know, "way to narrow it down". Well as mentioned, I'm no linguist, and didn't have much of a sample. But it would not take a very sophisticated ear to place the accent IMO. I've known a couple of black guys from Africa quite well. One was from Ghana (west coast of Africa ...on the south coast of the "bump"), and one was from Zaire (now called the Democratic Republic of the Congo). I think that my friend George's (Ghanan) accent more closely matched what I heard, but George and the pictures of all of his friends from "back home" that I saw were darker in skin color than this thief was.
I was at the store along with another NESer (he can identify himself if he cares to ...I won't). He's the one who notified me of the stolen pistol (and knife). He was watching the news on Wednesday evening, and it had a story about the theft (on the local NBC channel 7 out of Boston) at Riley's. Unreal. Their (the three individuals mentioned in the news stories) behavior while we were at the shop caused us to discuss it in a head-shaking fashion as soon as we left the building. As others have mentioned, they were behaving in a manner that should have got them booted before they ever stole anything. Of course, that behavior is assumed to be misdirection/cover. While this makes sense, I tell you, I think that this was normal behavior, and they were simply brazen, and didn't give a $hit.
I did not see which male said it, but these folks were loud. (even in a pretty busy Tuesday evening at the shop). Loud enough for me to clearly hear one of the males (I think that it was the one in the Hoodie) ask the clerk to let his girlfriend (the black girl wearing the hat) buy a gun for him. The clerk calmy explained that it wasn't possible. The theif said that he didn't have a license and she did, so she could buy him a gun. The clerk repeated that it was not possible. Wow.
After that repetitive dry-fire episode, when I brushed shoulders walking past the one in the white t-shirt, our eyes met for a heartbeat, and he said (not necessarily to me, just out loud), "there's a lot of guns". Genius.
At this point, I do believe that the staff at Riley's should have become "hyper-aware" of this trio. Obviously, they were not, and they did not.
I was thrown off track of the incident's timeline originally when, soon after my friend called and told me about the TV news report, I did a quick search on the WMUR.com website, and arrived at the
article that's been posted in this thread. It mentions a theft on Wednesday morning at 9:30am. So, I figured that they were just casing the place on Tuesday evening. And at that point, figured that I'd do my part and phone the Hooksett PD. I spoke with an officer, I gave a skeleton outline of my experience, and mentioned the article in the Union Leader that mentioned Wednesday 9:30am as the time of the theft. He said that the theft happened at the time that I was there. Interesting, bad reporting, or a filter to cut down on the cranks who claim that they "saw sumthin'"? In any case, I was transferred to the voicemail of a female officer who was involved in the case. I left my contact info, and as mentioned, that's the last that I have heard.
Riley's is covered with video surveillance. The parking lot too to some extent. I find it hard to believe that they don't have a decent lead on this trio if they're local to the Manchester area.
She stole the gun and a knife to remove the security tag. Boxes of ammo weren't far away. Granted, everyone there is armed ...or close enough. Damn dirtbag thieves eff it up for everyone.