Police in Los Angeles have released footage from the looting of a convenience store by a massive crowd of young people on August 15, 2022.
More than 100 people descended on a convenience store in Los Angeles, California, after blocking the roads with their cars.
The young people had held a street takeover at an intersection nearby and then moved en masse to a 7-Eleven store.
A street takeover is a huge gathering of young people usually coordinated via social media. They block a road and race with non-race cars. They also perform other stunts, such as drifting, ‘doughnuts’ and the like, while spectators watch and hail.
The California mob brushed the store staff aside and help themselves to cigarettes, beverages and other similar items. It appeared they consciously tried not to exceed the new felony threshold of $950 theft. Anything below that is just a misdemeanour.
One member of staff said that he feared for his life, and put up ‘no resistance’ to the looters according to the police
The gang of people completely destroyed the COVID-19 safety screen in the store as they tried to grab as much as they could in Los Angeles, California.
A security camera captured them running across the store and grabbing drinks, cigarettes, lottery tickets, bags of chips and other items.
Los Angeles Police Department said the suspects also started throwing items at them, with around 100 people involved in the chaos.
One store employee was left fearing for his life after the incident, with a suspect wearing a Colorado Rockies hate throwing food at one employee.
He added: ‘We really want to prevent this from becoming a new trend.’
Those involved face charges of vandalism, grand theft and looting when they are apprehended by authorities.
Another street takeover, just an hour later and less than two miles down the road saw a teenage boy shot dead.
The brazen incident comes after Proposition 47 was passed in California in 2014, meaning that some property theft was reduced from a felony to a misdemeanour.
The law, aimed at complying with a California Supreme Court order to reduce prison overcrowding, raised the threshold for felony theft to $950 from $400.
Two or more people who conspire to ‘cheat and defraud any person or any property, by any means which are in themselves criminal’ can face only one year in county prison, a fine of $10k or a combination of the two.
Soft-on-crime progressive District Attorney George Gascón has been slammed for his policies which other politicians claim ‘weaken’ their laws.
LAPD data shows that as of March 2022 robberies had skyrocketed in Los Angeles by a staggering 17.2% from the same period of time in 2021.
Fed-up California assemblyman Rudy Salas, a Democrat, introduced a bill that would lower the amount a suspect can steal before facing a felony to $400, which was the original threshold before Proposition 47 passed.
Salas said: ‘Enough is enough, we need to fight back against the criminals who are stealing from our communities.
‘We have seen the unintended consequences of Prop 47’s weakening of our theft laws and I believe California voters are ready to make their voices heard on this issue again.’
Watch the video of the incident on our Telegram channel here.
