Looting breaks out in California

[ZoWie]

We're having a different sort of Black Friday shopping spree this year. It's been going for several days. It resembles the sort of opportunistic looting that is usually associated with civil unrest. Given that barbed wire is now going up around some LA stores, I would say that this time the civil unrest follows the looting.

3 arrested after brazen smash-and-grab attempt at Nordstrom at the Grove
https://www.latimes.com/california/stor ... os-angeles

Los Angeles police pursued a vehicle into South Los Angeles after the incident, and three people were arrested sometime before 3 a.m., authorities said.

The break-in at Nordstrom was preceded by another smash and grab at a CVS in the 5800 block of South Vermont Avenue, LAPD officials said.

Six people entered the pharmacy, taking $8,500 in cash and three cash registers using “bodily force,” authorities said.

---

https://www.latimes.com/california/stor ... -retailers

The mayhem began Friday night, when thieves smashed a Louis Vuitton storefront window in San Francisco’s Union Square and ransacked the store. Criminals also targeted about a dozen nearby stores for theft and vandalism, police said, including a Burberry and Hermes store, as well as an eyeglass shop and cannabis dispensaries.

On Saturday night, the raid of the Nordstrom in nearby Walnut Creek was even more audacious: Just before closing time, some 80 people jumped out of a pack of cars, flash-mob style, and swarmed the aisles, many escaping with merchandise. Two employees were assaulted, one of them pepper sprayed.

And just after midnight Sunday, criminals used a sledgehammer to smash storefront windows at a Louis Vuitton and Saks Fifth Avenue in Beverly Hills, police said, but patrol cars arrived to scare the thieves off before they could get inside. Late Monday, another group attempted to break into the Nordstrom at the Grove shopping center in Los Angeles before leading police on a high-speed chase.

There are many other such news stories, indicating a major problem, and most of the quotes that I chose to omit make it clear that demands for a new "tough on crime" wave of politically and racially based harassment have already begun. Nothing good will come of any of this.

[gounion]

I was going to post on this.

I'm surprised it hadn't happened before - Everyone wearing masks makes it much easier to do such a thing. I'm sure it's white and black people doing it, but the right will use it racially. After all, they reason, blacks are genetically born criminal, as they see it.

[ZoWie]

I was going to post on this.

I'm surprised it hadn't happened before - Everyone wearing masks makes it much easier to do such a thing. I'm sure it's white and black people doing it, but the right will use it racially. After all, they reason, blacks are genetically born criminal, as they see it.

They're also already blaming lower bail and curbs on "stop and frisk" policing. Not a word about covid, the economy, the lucrative underground market for stolen goods, or the other reasons why western civilization is currently in decline. It's only a matter of time before the usual propaganda media get all over this and create more racial tension, which is the last thing we need to actually attack the underlying problem.

[Motor City]

They're also already blaming lower bail and curbs on "stop and frisk" policing. Not a word about covid, the economy, the lucrative underground market for stolen goods, or the other reasons why western civilization is currently in decline. It's only a matter of time before the usual propaganda media get all over this and create more racial tension, which is the last thing we need to actually attack the underlying problem.

Trying so hard to keep resources away from people that need them is what creates such a vaccum as this in the first place.

[sam lefthand]

I was going to post on this.

I'm surprised it hadn't happened before - Everyone wearing masks makes it much easier to do such a thing. I'm sure it's white and black people doing it, but the right will use it racially. After all, they reason, blacks are genetically born criminal, as they see it.

I saw reports on it yesterday as well. Except it was in Hayward CA. Once I saw the thread I looked around and found it again, because it has video and unfortunately all of the looters, about 9 or 10 of them in that video are Black kids. So yes even if some Whites are involved this will be perceived as a Black crime wave.



So let's hope some video shows up showing White and Asian kids doing it too.

Here's that report of the Robbery at Sam's Jewelers in Hayward with video:

https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2021/ ... se-robbed/

[ZoWie]

I saw reports on it yesterday as well. Except it was in Hayward CA. Once I saw the thread I looked around and found it again, because it has video and unfortunately all of the looters, about 9 or 10 of them in that video are Black kids. So yes even if some Whites are involved this will be perceived as a Black crime wave.

It appears that just since I first posted, the blame game has gotten well underway.

I've just seen several stories that are definite propaganda dog whistles. I'm not going to increase anyone's hit count by linking to the sources, but they're all "reputable" mainstream media and all easy to find in the usual places.

One links it to the WI parade massacre, and racializes it.

Another one says it's the Black gangs again, and quotes a non-reputable source which says that it's the same perps as LA's recent crime wave. They cite the high profile celebrity follow-home robberies and the series of stickups in upscale neighborhoods where wealthy people are dining outdoors at fancy restaurants. It's laid out in a manner that seems to be ginning up a class/race war.

They pretty much all say that the problems are all caused by Democratic led reforms such as lower bail and less mass incarceration. Most blame the Democratic Party.

I can't find a word about covid, use of Internet to coordinate robberies and then sell the loot, or the general decline of civility that started around 2010 for a variety of reasons.

[Motor City]

Erika Erickson leaves Fox 2 for Wayne County Sheriff's Office

The TV reporter, who has shared her battle with cervicogenic headaches on social, has revealed she is now working with the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office as its director of communications.

“I’m excited to work for the people of Wayne County, for the passionate Sheriff Raphael Washington and spirited Chief Michael Turner,” Erickson posted Monday on Facebook. “I also cannot wait to get in there and ya know, toss in some EE flavor. There are some incredible men and women at the WCSO and some beautiful stories to be shared!”

[ZoWie]

:facepalm:

[bradman]

:facepalm:

Second.

[Number6]

For mobs looting the stores in snatch-n-grabs it's organized crime (not the Mafia-type), pure and simple.

[Motor City]

The story, recently told by WBLT, a local TV station, is emblematic of the kind of news that media love to report during the holidays, stories of warm and fuzzy, of generosity above and beyond, stories that make us feel good. Maybe too good. Not to question Abraham’s — or anyone else’s — sincerity.

No, the point is only that sometimes, what warms the heart sedates the conscience. It ameliorates an immediate need — a hungry person is fed — but doesn’t interrogate, much less solve, the larger problem: Why is this person hungry to begin with? And how do we ensure that he is fed not just today but every day?

And the same goes with fear and outrage stories

Keeping things away from people is their security but real security is in having justice and humane standard of living and peoples rights afforded to them.

His selfless act should lead us to ask: Why do we let people go hungry in this country?

.....“Perhaps as a kid,” Pascale explained, “you played musical chairs where you had 10 children and nine chairs. Well, the child that is the slowest or least able is going to be the one left out. But from the beginning that game is rigged so there’s not enough for everyone.

We haven’t really come to terms with that as a country, to recognize [that our system] depends upon people not having enough, produces poverty in order to create tremendous wealth for others.”

To read Pascale’s book, to tour the lives of those she calls “the struggling class” — a hotel deskman in Appalachia, a factory worker in Tennessee, a nonprofit employee in Oakland — is to come away convinced we live in a rigged game where corporations buy politicians who subsidize those corporations with public money, but let someone suggest subsidizing the public with that same money, and there is a hue and cry about “socialism,” a word that somehow maintains its power to shock and repel, nine decades after it was used to attack a new program called Social Security...........

[sam lefthand]

For mobs looting the stores in snatch-n-grabs it's organized crime (not the Mafia-type), pure and simple.

Maybe the kids are organizing on Snapchat or some other Internet platform. Organized they may be but that doesn't mean they are smart. This kind of crime is dumb as French Toast.

I would estimate they might have a 50% chance of getting away with one of these robberies, which would become an almost certainty of being caught by the time they participate in three of these robberies. They won't stand a chance to ever become "skilled" at what they're doing before they find themselves in prison.

Where as with shoplifting individually they might be able to be caught and not have it become a felony conviction on their record. If they're caught doing one of these group crimes the cost of the goods and the cost of the damages will be added together, and each will face felony charges for the bulk sum. It will always be over the level that separates misdemeanor crime from felony crime.

Furthermore the DA will be under pressure to charge juvenal offenders as adults.

I would imagine they are being recorded by many, perhaps even dozens, of cameras as they move in and out, and since the police will not overlook this kind of "organized" crime they will apply the manpower as they need to look as each and every camera's footage of every aspect of the crime.

They will probably find footage of them out in the parking lot putting on their masks before they go in, so they will have footage of them without their masks. They will be identified, run down, and rounded up by the police.



An appallingly ignorant form of organized crime for kiddies.

[gounion]

Sam's right. It's a tactic that won't work for long. I think that laws do need to change to make it a SERIOUS crime.

[sam lefthand]

Sam's right. It's a tactic that won't work for long. I think that laws do need to change to make it a SERIOUS crime.

Thanks.



Nothing more of legislative political nature needs done, it already is a SERIOUS crime, the courts await perpetrators, prisons await the prisoners.



The police force needs to do a good job out in the field. Maybe they should be reformed.

[Motor City]

Sam's right. It's a tactic that won't work for long. I think that laws do need to change to make it a SERIOUS crime.

Remember what that kind of thinking leads to.

ICC: Philippines wants 'war on drugs' probe to be deferred

The Philippines has asked the International Criminal Court to defer its crimes against humanity investigation linked to the country's deadly “war on drugs,” the court's chief prosecutor announced Tuesday. The request will delay and could even halt altogether the ICC probe into the deadly crackdown.

Atrocities and lots of them. Its a bold thing but its boldness in a corrupted and unjust system filled with inequality and unequal treatment under the law in a land of unjust gains and losses. Its boldness in a place that much of the time wont lift a finger to defend peoples rights if they are poor or restrain crimes of people who are rich.

[carmenjonze]

The police force needs to do a good job out in the field. Maybe they should be reformed.

The police in this country right now is the so-called reform.

Can't reform this.

[ProfX]

We can debate what sucks about the War on Drugs in the U.S. Plenty, of course.

Duterte in the Phil. took it up a notch. He basically encouraged and facilitated vigilantes to kill drug dealers (aka people who they might THINK are dealers even if they are not, vigilantes are not known for thorough investigational skills) in the street.

Not shockingly, Trump, when asked about him, said he thought he was a great leader. I think they embraced each other. He did love his fellow authoritarians.

[sam lefthand]

The police in this country right now is the so-called reform.

Can't reform this.

I can tell you have never repainted a house. Reform is like repainting a house, sometimes it comes out nice the first or second or third time, but sometimes it doesn't, as many times as necessary one scraps on it for a while when it doesn't come out nice, and repaints it again, and again, as many times as necessary.



One does not tear down a house because the repainting doesn't come out nice the first, second, third, fourth times.



And then there are woodpeckers, I have woodpeckers, they make sure that I never finish repainting the house. By the time I get it done on the last side, the woodpeckers have pecked holes in the side I started on, so I have to start over. I never quite get done repairing the holes and repainting.



Woodpeckers are like police unions.

[carmenjonze]

troll

[sam lefthand]

troll

Trolls don't live under cold stone bridges anymore. No.



They've moved into warm moist bathrooms in warm houses with the warm people living in town; they live in the mirrors in the warm moist bathrooms in the warm houses with the warm people living in town.



Maybe you have a troll living in your mirror.

[carmenjonze]

troll

[sam lefthand]

troll

I know I heard you the first time. Have you checked your mirrors?



If that doesn't work reboot the machine.

[carmenjonze]

Can Supes force police to follow breakthrough accountability law? - Mission Local

Watchdog agencies have failed to get police records released despite the passage of a groundbreaking transparency law nearly three years ago.

Senate Bill 1421 was supposed to improve California policing by mandating disclosure regarding problem officers – including those inflicting bodily harm, lying, or involved in sexual misconduct.

As of January 2019, those records were made public under the California Public Records Act.

In reality, though, not many of these “public” records have ever seen the light of day.

[carmenjonze]

CA Legislature approves bill SB 16 to improve police accountability - Daily Cal

The California State Legislature approved bill SB 16 on Sept. 2 to expand public availability to police misconduct records.

The California State Senate voted 29-9 to pass the bill and the California State Assembly approved the bill on a vote of 57-13, according to a press release from Sen. Nancy Skinner’s, D-Berkeley, office. SB 16 has been sent to Gov. Gavin Newsom for approval.

Authored by Skinner, the bill gives communities the ability to hold police agencies more accountable. The publicly available records will include information about officers who “engaged in biased or discriminatory behavior, conducted unlawful arrests or searches, or used force that is excessive or unreasonable,” according to the press release.

“Communities deserve to know that those hired to protect them can be counted on to do so. With SB 16, we will now have the tools to hold our police departments accountable and rebuild trust,” Skinner said in the press release. “SB 16 also sends a clear message that officers who persist in racist or abusive behavior will not be hidden from the public any longer.”

Jonathan Abel, associate professor at UC Hastings College of Law, noted that the bill is an expansion of the California Public Records Act, which required the disclosure of government records to the public as of 1968. According to the press release, SB 16 also builds on SB 1421, which was introduced by Skinner in 2018 to make records related to officers’ sexual assault, use of force and dishonesty accessible to the public.

[Number6]

Maybe the kids are organizing on Snapchat or some other Internet platform. Organized they may be but that doesn't mean they are smart. This kind of crime is dumb as French Toast.

The really smart ones are the ones who get others to commit the crime and then keep the gains from those committed the crime.

I would estimate they might have a 50% chance of getting away with one of these robberies, which would become an almost certainty of being caught by the time they participate in three of these robberies. They won't stand a chance to ever become "skilled" at what they're doing before they find themselves in prison.

Most likely, those caught will turn on the others they knew who were in on the robbery.

Where as with shoplifting individually they might be able to be caught and not have it become a felony conviction on their record. If they're caught doing one of these group crimes the cost of the goods and the cost of the damages will be added together, and each will face felony charges for the bulk sum. It will always be over the level that separates misdemeanor crime from felony crime.

Because there is some form or organization, I think the charges will automatically increase from a misdemeanor to a felony.

Furthermore the DA will be under pressure to charge juvenal offenders as adults.

I think most of those involve would be over 18 but I agree that the DA will prosecute the juveniles as adults.

I would imagine they are being recorded by many, perhaps even dozens, of cameras as they move in and out, and since the police will not overlook this kind of "organized" crime they will apply the manpower as they need to look as each and every camera's footage of every aspect of the crime.

They will probably find footage of them out in the parking lot putting on their masks before they go in, so they will have footage of them without their masks. They will be identified, run down, and rounded up by the police.

No doubt the police are collecting video from security cameras a couple of blocks surrounding the store. Depending upon the quality of the video, the police could identify individuals before and after they entered the store as well as the car's and their license plates.

An appallingly ignorant form of organized crime for kiddies.

Appallingly ignorant for or organized crime, yes. What I was wondering is how would they get rid of the stole items? Most likely sell it to people they know for a fraction of the store's price.