You’ve been waiting and waiting for the lamp you ordered to arrive at your home, but still nothing. You’ve likely chalked it up to Biden’s economy and a disrupted supply chain. But it could be something else, something insidious: crime and criminals. In a story featuring a stunning photo, the Los Angeles Times reports what is happening, likening it to “the days of horseback-riding bandits.”
The scene was a stretch of railroad tracks in Lincoln Heights on Saturday: a blizzard of torn plastic wrappers, cardboard boxes and paper packaging attesting to a wave of rail car thievery that officials say has been on the rise in recent months.
Several scavengers picked through the debris, hoping to find electronics, clothes or whatever valuables thieves left behind.
“Everything comes on the train — cellphones, Louis Vuitton purses, designer clothes, toys, lawnmowers, power equipment, power tools,” said a 37-year-old man who declined to give his name. He said he comes to the tracks regularly and once found a Louis Vuitton purse and a robotic arm worth five figures: “We find things here and there, make some money off of it.”
It’s not just rail cars that thieves are targeting. It’s delivery trucks as well. Watch the CEO of UPS, Carol Tome, explain to CNBC’s Squawk Box what happened to a UPS driver.
Where are the cops? Why isn’t President Biden holding public meetings with law enforcement and prosecutors to denounce this blatant crime and send a warning to the thieves?