Tell us More About Those Falling Crime Rates in Los Angeles

AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast

One of the themes that Kamala Harris's campaign team seems to be pushing in the early going is her record as a prosecutor in California. That sounds rather bizarre, but at least at the surface level it sort of makes sense. They want to portray her as "the prosecutor versus the convicted felon." The legacy media continues to enthusiastically endorse this fairy tale by assuring us that crime rates are already falling under the leadership of the Biden-Harris Dynamic Duo, despite what your lying eyes might be telling you. But a prosecutor is supposed to fight crime, right? So how are things going in Harris's home state of California? Let's check in with the LAPD to find out. The murder rate has decreased slightly over the past year, which is certainly welcome news. But the same can't be said for many other types of crime, particularly retail theft. One high-end shoe store in LA found that out the hard way this week. As CBS News reports, Rich LA, a clothing and shoe store on West Century Boulevard that had only opened two months ago was robbed on Friday morning. A gang of thieves cut through the metal security barrier, smashed out the windows and emptied the store of $80,000 in merchandise and another $20,000 in cash from the safe.

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Burglars stole a combined $100,000 in cash and merchandise during a brazen robbery in South Los Angeles early Friday morning.

"They just broke in here and took a lot of stuff, shoes, clothes — high-end clothes," Kate, an employee, said.

At about 3:25 a.m., at least five suspects in face masks cut through the metal security gate outside Rich LA, a clothing and sneaker store in the 2100 block of West Century Boulevard, before smashing through the glass window. The group spent the next 15 minutes grabbing as much as possible and stuffing it into their cars: a white Mercedes-Benz, a silver Camaro, and a white Corvette. None of the cars had license plates.

While it's very possible that the vehicles they used were stolen, these were some crooks with very upper-end taste. Not everyone rolls up to pull off a robbery in a Mercedes, a Camaro, and a Corvette. Making matters worse, this was the seventh time that Rich LA had been robbed in the barely sixty days since it initially opened. The owner insists that the store will not close, but they will install bulletproof glass in the front windows during the latest round of repairs. So what happened to the thieves? Nothing. The police have no suspects.

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Surely this was just a one-off incident, right? Not so much. On the very same day, a gang of as many as 50 teenagers invaded a 7-Eleven store in the same neighborhood and cleaned it out almost entirely before riding away on bicycles.  They were all wearing masks and it was clearly an organized crime expedition.

About 50 masked teens rushed into a Los Angeles 7-Eleven and ransacked the convenience store before speeding off on bicycles Friday night.

The chaos happened at about 8 a.m. inside a 7-Eleven at Olympic and La Cienega Boulevards. During the madness, clerks pushed a panic alarm, notifying the Los Angeles Police Department.

Officers said the teens took off with a bunch of cigarettes and other merchandise like snacks and drinks from the store, most of which was caught on camera. Footage shows the moments that several members of the group climb onto counters, push shelves to the floor and throw items around the store.

One employee told police that it was obviously an organized affair. She said that it's as if "the kids know they're not gonna be prosecuted." Police finally arrived after it was over, but once again nobody was arrested or even identified. None of this is random and these teenagers have no fear of acting in this fashion because they know there will be no serious consequences for their actions. If they succeed, they get away with a significant score that they can sell on the streets for cash. If they are somehow caught (highly unlikely with the drastically increased response times for the overwhelmed LAPD), they will be let off with a stern warning and a slap on the wrist, leaving them free to go straight back to "work." 

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This is all happening as a result of California's lax attitude toward criminal behavior and the Democrats' impulses to decriminalize everything and empty the jails in the name of supposed social justice. When you remove disincentives to committing crimes, people will show up to take advantage of that situation. And as we're seeing in Los Angeles and most of California, they will sometimes show up in very large numbers. Yet one of the people who created this environment in the Golden State now wants to be the President of the entire nation. How do you suppose that would work out?

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Ed Morrissey 10:00 PM | September 09, 2024
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