Burglars have capitalized on chaos nationwide in the wake of the death of George Floyd, a black man who pleaded for air as a white Minneapolis…
Burglars have capitalized on chaos nationwide in the wake of the death of George Floyd, a black man who pleaded for air as a white Minneapolis officer held a knee on his neck. They are allegedly communicating with each other via messaging apps during heists and using the protests and other tactics to throw police off their trail. While opportunists have sometimes joined the frenzy, police and experts say there is a sophistication that suggests a level of planning that goes beyond spontaneous acts.
It’s hardly the first time legitimate protest has been used as a cover for crime. But crime experts, as The Associated Press reported, note the scale of the thefts, which have taken place coast-to-coast, in big and small cities and in suburbs.
“It was very strategic,” Sgt. Ray Kelly of the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office said about the auto thefts and other recent heists in the San Francisco Bay Area community.
Kelly said the county began to get a handle on things after imposing evening curfews on Monday. He noted there was a clear distinction between protesters who got out of hand while demonstrating for social justice and other people who seized on the uprising to steal.
“Some of the burning was done out of anger and that was understandable,” he said. “But the strategic looting was definitely for personal gain. It was not to push forward the community concerns around police brutality and reform.”
Some shoplifters displayed surprising brazenness, walking out of stores with stolen goods. TV helicopters captured some people changing into their pilfered attire outside Long Beach shops and another person struggling to close the trunk of a car stuffed with clothes at a Walnut Creek mall near Oakland.
“I’ve been a student of these things. And I have never seen anything like it,” said Neil Sullivan, a nationally recognized expert on mass-events security and retired Chicago Police Department commander.
