Looting Surging In Major American Cities

A nation was stunned by videos of roving flash mobs smashing store windows and hauling off merchandise in Philadelphia.  Gangs of young adults, working in tandem, roamed the city in a caravan, stealing with impunity last week.  Overwhelmed police could not stop the brazen crime wave.

The rampage occurred after a peaceful demonstration to protest the decision to drop charges against a Philadelphia police officer who shot and killed a young adult.  The mayor and police were emphatic: the burglaries and thefts were unrelated to the shooting and the nonviolent protests.

Philadelphia's nightmare is just the latest in an outbreak of unbridled criminal looting.  Stores in Seattle, San Francisco, New York, Portland and Los Angeles have been victimized by thieves almost daily.  Retail theft has become an epidemic that is prompting businesses to shutter stores. 

Big box store Target recently announced it was closing nine stores in major cities, citing violence, theft and concern for the safety of its employees.  Clothier Lululemon, Walmart, Starbucks, Walgreen's, CVS and Nordstrom have closed stores in areas hard-hit by repeated looting and theft. 

Some businesses, including Lululemon, have ordered employees to take no action as stores are emptied by shoplifters and mobs.  Two Lululemon employees who confronted thieves were summarily fired by the company. The message to thieves is clear: We invite you to steal merchandise.   

The perpetrators for the most part are not individual shoplifters. These are criminal enterprises operated by individuals that steal merchandise and fence the ill gotten goods for cash.   This doesn't reflect tough economic times; it is increasingly a lucrative cash business for crime networks. 

The price tag for retail theft is $112 billion so far this year, according to a retail security survey conducted by the National Retail Foundation.  That figure compares to $94 billion in 2021. Most police departments do not have a separate category to distinguish looting from robbery and larceny. 

New York Congresswoman Alexander Ocasio-Cortez has characterized the thieves as individuals who just want food to eat.  The only people going hungry are the scores of  retail employees who lose their jobs in the aftermath of store closings. 

In Los Angeles, a group of thieves ransacked a Nike store, carting off trash bags full of high-priced shoes. In San Francisco, mobs attached Victoria's Secret and Swarovski a few years ago, leaving a trail of bras and pushed jewelry boxes littering the sidewalks in their getaway.   

Police and retailers blame the lack of prosecution of thieves and the implementation of laws that make shoplifting de facto legal. California's new penal code 459 made pilfering a misdemeanor if the pilfered merchandise was valued under $950.  

California Governor Gavin Newsome recently signed a new law making shoplifting a felony IF it is carried out by a organized ring of criminals intending to resell the goods.  That's a big IF.  The state's prosecutors often decline to bring shoplifting charges or allow individuals to walk free after booking. 

Unfettered looting isn't confined to California, as the scene in Philadelphia testifies.  Criminal looters have struck in New York City, Atlanta, Minneapolis, Tampa, Bellevue (Washington), Portland and others. Looting is likely the fastest growing crime, but no data exists to verify it.    

Looters encourage other young adults to join in, posting on social media live video of their criminal escapades.  The thieves even single out which stores have insurance to cover losses, making the crime appear harmless because after all, theft really doesn't cost the business in the long run.  

Looting sprees are an outgrowth of the George Floyd riots in the summer of 2020, More than $1 billion in damages caused by arson, vandalism, and looting occurred  in the wake of 10,600 "peaceful" demonstrations that erupted in the wake of Floyd's death at the hands of a Minneapolis policeman.

While hundreds were arrested nationwide during the riots, the crime of looting went mostly unpunished.  Some mayors, including Baltimore's chief executive, ordered police to stand down and let the looters vent their frustration at the Floyd killing.  Criminals got the message.  Looting will go unpunished.

Social justice proponents like to blame the pandemic.  That's a coincidence, not a cause.  The Floyd riots ignited during the pandemic.  That was the trigger for violence, arson, attacks on police and looting. Blaming the pandemic for looting lacks credible evidence. 

Executives of retail stores from Walmart to Walgreens are encouraging police and prosecutors to crack down on these organized thefts. Retailers warn they'll be forced to raise prices and close more stores without help to address the growing threat.

Some sates are enacting tougher laws to make looting and shoplifting with intent to sell a felony.  Others are beefing up police presence in retail districts.  That's a start.  Law enfacement needs real time data, which means tracking retail theft as a separate category at the national level.

Retailers also need to do their part.  Their warnings about store closings are ignored by the mobs.  Don't just wring your hands about the losses and pass on the increase to consumers in the form of higher prices. Issue ultimatums to cities: Stop the looting or we are leaving.

In light of America's other deeper crime issues, this one is imminently solvable.    

  

Burgeoning Crime Wave Swamps Big Cities

America's big cities are wrestling with an unprecedented surge in crime.  No one can claim the rolling swell of crime is a shock in the wake of the nationwide clamor to defund police departments.  City officials bowed to rioting mobs demands, cleaving police budgets and trimming cops on the street.

The impact was predictable.  A Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) preliminary report shows murders and non-negligent manslaughter offenses increased 14.8% after years of decline.  Aggravated assaults climbed 4.6%.  Arson skyrocketed 19.2%. The reporting period covers January to June 2020.

The final FBI report for last year won't be released until this September.  However, In the last three months of 2020, the crime wave evolved into a tsunami.  Homicides spiraled 32.2% in cities with a population of at least one million, according to data in the FBI Quarterly Uniform Report. 

After the George Floyd death, riots and looting erupted in many major cities.  As the lawlessness continued night after night, weak kneed, mostly Democrat city officials surrendered to Black Lives Matter and Antifa by rushing to defund their police departments with little or no public debate. 

Cities including New York, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Minneapolis, Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Austin and Atlanta ordered deep budget cuts that impacted manpower.  Departments were forced to slice payrolls and decrease police presence, which slowed response time.

Cuts ranged from $1 billion in New York City to $29 million in Oakland.  The result was devastating for the most vulnerable residents of these major cities.  Deadly crimes spiked in neighborhoods with mostly African-American and Hispanic majorities.  

In Minneapolis, scene of the Floyd death, murders jumped 46% between December of last year and March 28 of this year.  In New York City, murders shot up 11.8% as of March 21 year-over-year.  Shootings spiked 40.1% in just the first quarter of this year.

Los Angeles reported a 38% increase in murders in 2020, despite the Coronavirus  mandates that kept most residents sheltered in their homes and apartments.  After Austin sliced its police budget by $43 million, arsons soared 73%, aggravated assaults rose 26%.  

Portland, scene of some of the worst rioting, experienced a 1,600% increase in murders in just the first two months of this year.  From July 2020 to February, the homicide rate escalated 270.6%.  Once peaceful, laid back Portland was transformed into a war zone by anarchists. 

These depressing statistics prompted an outcry from citizen groups in these cities, pressuring city councils and mayors to backtrack in the face of withering criticism.  New York reinstated $92 million in its police budget, Baltimore proposed a $27 million increase after chopping $22 million in 2020.

Other cities followed suit, including Oakland, Minneapolis, Houston, San Diego and others.  After being drowned out for months by the anarchists, ordinary citizens and many business said: Enough!  But restoring budgets may be too late for many cities caught up in anti-police media and protests frenzy.

Police are leaving in droves in the cities that refused to back the blue.  New York City Police Department resignations and retirements are up 75% from the previous year.  More than 5,300 uniformed officers have left the force.  When cities defund police, it's a clear signal policing is no longer a priority.

In Minneapolis, more than 200 officers left between last July and this March.  That is a 49% increase from the previous year. The Police Department union blames the lack of city council support and the city's refusal to back officers during the worst of the riots.  

The story is the same in other crime plagued cities.  Seattle and Portland have both reported the biggest wave of  police departures in recent memory. Staffing shortages are exacerbating the out-of-control rise in violent crime in these cities and others.  Cutting police budgets has deadly consequences.

The head of the Police Union in Portland had harsh criticism for City Commissioner Joe Ann Hardesty, who spearheaded the defund the police movement in the city,  "Roving gangs of black clad rioters do not speak for the hundreds of thousands of residents and business owners, who want a safe and clean city. Yet local politicians supported them."

Some concerned law enforcement officials are speculating the defund the police movement has a broader agenda than just addressing the law enforcement shooting of African-Americans. Former Arizona police officer Brandon Tatum, author of an upcoming book on the subject, has a plausible theory.

"I believe it's an agenda to completely destroy and dismantle local police departments so that the (federal) government can have control of law enforcement in this country and push a nationwide agenda," Tatum said in an interview. 

Tatum has a point.  If law enforcement is federalized, then the government in Washington can enforce mandates and restrictions that support its progressive agenda.  Imagine a federal cops seizing guns from legal owners, forcing citizens to get COVID vaccines or policing public speech.

That would be a dangerous development that would infringe on Constitutional rights.  However, if the Washington progressives pass laws, then what better way to force compliance than having a federal police force to do its bidding?  It's a sobering thesis that should worry every American.