Tag: looting

Harvard Silent as Dean Defends Death Threats Against Trump

A Harvard dean defended death threats against Donald Trump and said “rioting and looting” are legitimate “parts of democracy.” Will the Ivy League institution sanction him? Even though the school is at loggerheads with the Trump administration, it’s looking the other way at this behavior.

The dean, Gregory Davis, is the “main liaison for students needing extra help achieving their academic and wellness goals” at Harvard University’s Dunster House. “Over the past two weeks,” the Free Beacon‘s Aaron Sibarium reports, “Over the past two weeks, conservative students at Harvard have unearthed a series of social media posts they say disqualify Davis for his position.” Chief among them: “I don’t – at all – blame people wishing Trump ill. … [F]uck that guy and [i]f he dies, he dies.”

Harvard has not commented publicly on the posts, and a spokesman for the school, Jonathan Palumbo, said he couldn’t discuss personnel matters. Davis has said the posts do not reflect his “current thinking or beliefs,” though it was kind of recently—June 2024—that he exhorted people to “hate the police.” Palumbo declined to comment regarding whether it was appropriate for a dean to legitimize calls for political violence.

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Gavin Newsom’s Bay Area ravaged by surging crime as LA burns: ‘It’s a war zone!’

California residents in the Bay Area are fed up with the mounting crime and calling on Gov. Gavin Newsom to send help as Los Angeles continues to battle wildfires that have destroyed several communities. 

As looting is on the rise in Southern California as communities work to pick up the pieces left by wildfires, Newsom is calling for looting in fire evacuation zones to be a felony after prosecutors urged him to issue harsher penalties.

“Preying on people at their most vulnerable is despicable, these criminals are among the worst kinds,” Newsom said in a statement provided to Fox News Digital on Thursday afternoon. 

Newsom said “looting has never been legal here” and that “it will not be tolerated” as the state continues to battle the ravenous inferno that broke out on Jan. 7. 

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Humvees, Machine Gun Hardware, Bayonets Stolen From Military Storage Warehouse Near Los Angeles

Suspects broke into a U.S. Army warehouse near Los Angeles this week and made off with Humvees, machine gun hardware, bayonets, and other gear, according to authorities.

The incident unfolded sometime before midnight on Wednesday in Tustin, a city in Orange County.

Suspects managed to gain entry to a warehouse at the Army Reserve Center and raid multiple storage lockers.

They also tried unsuccessfully to access a uniform storage area.

The suspects then cut through fencing and entered a parking lot before driving off in three Humvees, one of which was armored.

The Tustin Police Department (TPD) itemized additional stolen gear as follows:

  • 8 machine gun vehicle mounts
  • 7 free-standing machine gun tripods
  • 40 pairs of binoculars
  • 18 bayonets
  • Medical equipment

“The Army has informed us there is no known loss of weapons or ammunition other than what is listed in the above flyer,” TPD stated in a press release.

“If you see these vehicles, please contact Tustin PD dispatch immediately at 714-573-3225 or your local law enforcement agency.”

It is currently unclear if the brazen burglary is connected to lawlessness and chaos breaking out amid historic fires in the Los Angeles area.

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LA resident says gang of ‘100 people’ are roaming evacuated areas looting homes: report

Gangs of apparent looters have been breaking into Californian’s homes as they have been under evacuation orders to leave the areas in and around Los Angeles with multiple wildfires raging, according to a resident from the. As of Friday, the death toll has climbed to at least 10, and the blaze has forced some 130,000 to evacuate communities in an around Los Angeles.

KTLA reported that police confirmed a large group was in a neighborhood where the incident took place.

Resident Allison Agsten said, “We just started seeing all these cars pull up, doors open, groups of men running up our street, going up to the doors of these houses.”

“My next-door neighbor said, ’There were like 100 people,’ that came up on scooters and were trying to get into any and all houses on this street,” Agsten added about the suspected gang of looters she saw.

On Wednesday, residents told reporters that they’re worried about evacuating their homes due to looters. Reporter Haley Winslow said while reporting near the Eaton Fire, “It has turned into the wild wild west here. It is just complete insanity on all corners. Police are doing the best they can, they’re seeing looters walking down the street with large TVs just taking advantage of what little this town has left,” per Newsweek.

Reporter Madisen Keavy also said she had a similar experience, “Our cameras saw three men on scooters immediately turn around when they saw police.”

LA County Sheriff Robert Luna said at a press conference that 20 people have been arrested for looting in the wildfire evacuation zones this week, “Twenty individuals chose to go into our areas and deprive these poor people who have been through so much of their property.”

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Police Take 4 Hours to Respond to Looting of Walgreens in San Francisco

Underscoring how the problem has become so endemic, police waited four hours before bothering to respond to the looting of a Walgreens in San Francisco, at which point the store was closed anyway.

Video shot by a producer at CBS San Francisco who was shopping with his girlfriend shows a number of black youths wearing masks sweeping through the store, thieving items and throwing them into bags before leaving.

The group didn’t care that they were being recorded by surveillance cameras or the CBS producer filming them on his phone.

“End of the day on Easter Sunday should have been pleasant. Instead I was shocked to see looters taking what they pleased with no regard for the law, or those around them, real-life smash and grab,” he said.

The incident happened at the Walgreens store at 9th and Market Streets at about 4:30pm on Easter Sunday.

However, the police didn’t even bother to respond until over four hours later.

“San Francisco police said in an emailed statement that officers responded at about 8:38 p.m. to a report of a group of people stealing from a business on the 1300 block of Market Street. Officers arrived to find the business was closed and no one was there to report the incident,” reports CBS News.

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Marauding Bands Of Looters Are Stealing Billions Of Dollars Worth Of Merchandise As America Descends Into Lawlessness

Three years ago, I bet that 99 percent of my readers had never heard of ORC.  Of course by now almost everyone knows that ORC stands for “organized retail crime”, and it is prompting retailers to permanently shut down stores all over the nation.  Right now, retail theft is happening from coast to coast on a scale that we have never seen in our entire history.  Marauding bands of looters are barging into stores, grabbing as much merchandise as they can possibly carry, and then loading it into their vehicles.  Online marketplaces make it easier than ever to turn stolen goods into cash, and at this point organized retail crime has become a multi-billion dollar business.  As I have repeatedly warned my readers, America is descending into lawlessness.  The thin veneer of civilization that we all depend upon on a daily basis is rapidly disappearing, and if we stay on this path our society will soon be completely unrecognizable.

Every year, organized retail crime gets even worse.  According to Fox Business, the number of ORC incidents in 2021 was 26.5 percent higher than in 2020…

ORC incidents soared 26.5% on average in 2021, with 81.2% of retailers surveyed reporting “somewhat more” or “much more” ORC-associated aggression and violence year-over-year, according to the survey.

Of course things are even worse here in 2022, and this is particularly true in states where shoplifting laws are very soft.

For example, in Portland some stores are often victimized “more than once a day”…

Some of the hot items are perfumes and expensive handbags. Often, stores are victimized daily and sometimes more than once a day. A local pastor whose window looks out on the local Nike store says he sees thieves running out of the store with their arms full of stolen stuff all the time. And the excellent KGW-TV story makes the point that this stolen stuff is not to feed hungry children. It is organized theft. The stuff gets sold online and in flea markets.

Needless to say, it is almost impossible to run a profitable business in such an environment, and many store owners are throwing in the towel.

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Psaki Says Gangs of ‘Smash-and-Grab’ Thieves Are Looting Louis Vuitton, Bottega Veneta Stores in Democrat-Run Cities Because of Covid 

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki on Thursday blamed the organized “smash-and-grab” robberies sweeping Democrat-run cities on Covid.

Organized gangs in San Francisco and Los Angeles have targeted luxury retailers such as Louis Vuitton, Bottega Veneta, Nordstrom, jewelry stores and Home Depot.

A gang of thieves also stormed into a CVS pharmacy in Oakland and stole medication.

Psaki says the flash robberies are due to the pandemic after initially blaming ‘gun violence.’

“When a huge group of criminals organizes themselves and they want to go loot a store—a CVS, Nordstrom, a Home Depot — until the shelves are clean, you think that’s because of the pandemic?” Fox News reporter Peter Doocy asked.

Psaki: “I think a root cause in a lot of communities is the pandemic, yes.”

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Charges dropped for hundreds of alleged looters in New York City

In late May and early June 2020, looters smashed storefronts in the Bronx and Manhattan boroughs of New York City.

Many were caught on tape, some with their faces visible. Others even posted their own videos of their actions those nights on social media. Hundreds were arrested.

But a review of NYPD data by the investigative team at WNBC, the NBC owned station in New York, shows that a large percentage of the cases — particularly in the Bronx — were dismissed, and that many convictions were for counts like trespassing that carry no jail time.

“I was in total shock that everything is being brushed off to the side,” said Jessica Betancourt, who owns an eyeglass shop that was looted and destroyed along Burnside Avenue in the Bronx last June.

According to the data, 118 arrests were made in the Bronx during the worst of the looting in early June.

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