Train Robbery Makes a Big Comeback in Los Angeles
“Thieves have been raiding the cargo containers, taking packages that belong to people from all over the country from retailers like Amazon, REI and others.”
There’s been plenty of reportage over the last two years about the rise in crime, but did you know that even train robbery has made a comeback?
In Los Angeles, thieves have perfected the act of breaking into cargo cars when the trains make stops, and pulling out pretty much anything they can get their hands on.
John Schreiber of CBS News in Los Angeles recently posted a series of shocking videos on Twitter:
Keep hearing of train burglaries in LA on the scanner so went to #LincolnHeights to see it all. And… there’s looted packages as far as the eye can see. Amazon packages, @UPS boxes, unused Covid tests, fishing lures, epi pens. Cargo containers left busted open on trains. @CBSLA pic.twitter.com/JvNF4UVy2K
— John Schreiber (@johnschreiber) January 13, 2022
I’m told by law enforcement these @UPS bags are especially sought after by thieves opening cargo containers… they are often full of boxes with merchandise bound for residential addresses. More valuable than say, a cargo container full of low value bulky items like toilet paper. pic.twitter.com/Tj5bQNIeby
— John Schreiber (@johnschreiber) January 13, 2022
As you can see, trains frequently slow or stop in this area as they get worked into the @UnionPacific Intermodal facility near Downtown LA. The thieves use this opportunity to break open containers and take what’s inside. I’d say every 4th or 5th rail car had opened containers. pic.twitter.com/PHpujyB84M
— John Schreiber (@johnschreiber) January 13, 2022
Missing a package? Shipment delayed? Maybe your package is among the thousands we found discarded along the tracks. This is but one area thieves have targeted trains. We were told this area was just cleaned up 30 days ago so what you see is all within the last month. @CBSLA pic.twitter.com/43002DPyZa
— John Schreiber (@johnschreiber) January 13, 2022
Responsibility for policing the railroad right of way falls on Union Pacific Police… not local agencies like LAPD. We did see Union Pacific police chasing two people today off the tracks and keeping an eye on things. pic.twitter.com/M5aQSrkGZW
— John Schreiber (@johnschreiber) January 14, 2022
Here’s a report from CBS News in LA:
Thieves Raiding Cargo Containers, Stealing Packages On Downtown Section Of Union Pacific Train Tracks
A section of the Union Pacific train tracks in downtown Los Angeles has been littered with thousands of shredded boxes, packages stolen from cargo containers that stop in the area to unload.
Thieves have been raiding the cargo containers, taking packages that belong to people from all over the country from retailers like Amazon, REI and others.
The refuse left behind, like home COVID test kits, are items that the robbers did not want or did not think were valuable enough to take.
Sources told CBSLA that the locks Union Pacific uses are easy to cut, and officials with the Los Angeles Police Department said they don’t respond to reports of a train robbery unless Union Pacific asks them for help, which they said is rare.
While CBSLA was on the scene with cameras, one person was seen running off with a container used to hold smaller packages, and a Union Pacific officer was spotted chasing after two other people who appeared to be rifling through packages.
This has been going on for months. Back in August, CBS LA reported that homeless encampments along the tracks were discovered to be full of stolen goods.
Is there any wonder why people are fleeing California in droves?
Featured image via Twitter video.
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
It happens wherever the opportunity comes up, not just in Los Angeles. Though the thieves may be getting an extra free pass from the locals there.
Looks more like a train wreck than a robbery. Or a housing project.
“Los Angeles Police Department said they don’t respond to reports of a train robbery unless Union Pacific asks them for help, which they said is rare.”
That’s because RR lines maintain their own private armed police forces, and (unlike the LAPD) they’re more likely to play for keeps. Used to shoot with an instructor who worked for Conrail’s security. Spry, wiry, and could take out your eye from anywhere in the yard.
Then they need to start doing that
Somebody stole all the mail boxes in the projects night before everyone’s check comes.
Was at least hoping horses, masked gunmen, 6 shooters.
But back to wild west anyway.
Similarly maybe Union Pacific should hire West and Arty to combat settle stuff down.
Call the Pinkertons.
I would assume they are already on the job. They still exist and no doubt still work for railroad companies.
When the USPS began experiencing enormous problems with gangsters robbing mail trains and delivery trucks, Harding didn’t call the Pinkertons. He called the US Marines. The Navy Secretaries instructions to those Marines was simple:
“To the Men of the Mail Guard, you must when on guard duty, keep your weapons in hand and, if attacked, shoot and shoot to kill. If two Marines are covered by a robber, neither must put up his hands, but both must immediately go for their guns. One may die, but the other will get the robber, and the mail will get through. When our Corps goes in as guards over the mail, that mail must be delivered, or there must be a Marine dead at the post of duty. There can be no compromise.”
Robberies stopped immediately. Months later, the Marines went home…then robberies picked-up again. This time, they were sent back and were told, ‘shoot to kill.’ Robberies again stopped and never started again.
Until now, I guess.
This^^^^^^
They’ve retired now that Dr. Loveless is gone.
“Sure you used enough dynamite there, Butch?”
What? Someone had to say it!
“Who are those guys”?
I just love readin’ my name in the paper, Butch.
Is that what happened to my order of 60 stick pens? And here I thought office-supply pilfering only happened in actual, you know, offices.
Ha ha ha! Los Angeles!
Home of the people who scream, “We don’t need to bring back the Wild West!” every time some state relaxes unconstitutional gun restrictions.
They’re literally living in the new Wild West.
And they’re unarmed.
When I was younger there where ads for charities showing starving children next to obviously abandoned railroad tracks. I always wondered what happened to a country to go from having railroads to starving on empty tracks. I think we may get to see.
Or you can read Atlas Shrugged, and get the blow-by-blow.
Yes, I have been noticing more and more things are are right out of Atlas Shrugged. It is frightening.
The one the popped for me recently was when Isabella Weber (assistant professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst) said this:
“Price controls would buy time to deal with bottlenecks that will continue as long as the pandemic prevails. Strategic price controls could also contribute to the monetary stability needed to mobilize public investments towards economic resilience, climate change mitigation and carbon-neutrality.”
The “buy time” is very close to the phrasing used by the looters through out AS to justify things very like the price controls that a professor of economics is proposing. A policy that, as anyone who has studied economics for more than a couple of hours knows, never has and never will work.
If Atlas seen that mess he would do more that shrug.
Train robbery is a federal offense, so where is Garland?
Chasing people who attend school board meetings and express dissatisfaction with the curriculum.
He won’t act unless it’s domestic terrorist parents working their side hustle in between terrorizing school board meetings.
He won’t respond unless a black train is robbed by white supremacists.
“[S]o where is Garland?”
Changing Joe’s diaper and heating up the pudding.
Whether a “federal offense” is a crime depends on the political status of those committing it.
Subotai Bahadur
Well, maybe if the FBI gets tired of persecuting Trump supporters and investigating garage door pulls at NASCAR events, they can find a body or two to – you know – stop the ongoing Great Train Robbery.
My grandfather was a Railroad ‘detective’ prior to WWII. I doubt that the current crop has anywhere near the latitude those guys did. To say they were harsh is a vast understatement.
But it’s what is needed
Colin Flaherty, “Crime is the new black entitlement.”