Rolling through the poor sections of LA on April 16th were groups of people attempting to have an entire street takeover. With their concentration on the urban centers of the city, the crowds moved through with seemingly little purpose other than causing destruction and looting things they didn’t earn.
Video surveillance from an Arco gas station near Alondra Blvd and Central Avenue in Compton shows the store being attacked before being left in utter ruins. Starting with two individuals who try to break through the glass door by repeatedly smashing it, a crowd of hundreds poured through. With people recording, someone successfully kicked the glass in, and the people began pouring in. On their way out, booze, food, and even condoms came out the door with the looters. Thankfully, the bathroom made a good makeshift bunker for the lone cashier.
ABC7 interviewed a resident about the problems in the area. “The mob of people, period. You don’t know how they’re going to react once they get in, and if somebody’s in there, I know that they’re terrified.” As supporting footage at competing station KTLA showed, the fear was real for the person working the station. These kids ransacked the store as quickly as they could.
While shots were fired just a block away from the street takeover, no reports of anyone being hurt came in.
On Rosencrans, three separate street takeovers occurred. The frenzied crowd broke into a laundromat according to NBC LA reports on April 17th. “Police also say that thieves broke into two Mexican restaurants near Long Beach and Rosecrans. Now the business owners are cleaning up the mess left behind. The sheriff’s office says they are investigating the incident and so far, no arrests have been made.” According to ABC7, the LAPD said they were unable to intervene because they were simply outnumbered.
These kinds of ruthless, destructive, disturbing, and aggressive takeovers put hundreds of people at needless risk. Destroying these intersections, wasting taxpayer money to repair the damage, wasted money on arrests and evidence processing just for the DA to drop the charges or at least plead out the offender makes perusing these charges almost worthless. Then, there’s the propensity of these mobs to suddenly turn extremely violent and the mob mentality that comes with these gatherings.
The urban sections of LA have been hotbeds for activity over the years, and as inflation rises thanks to President Biden, it has made the paycheck-to-paycheck situation many find themselves in even harder than in years before. Feeling ignored by the same people they overwhelmingly vote for, many are starting to become conservatives as a result. Those who have grown tired of the lawlessness like these street takeovers are ready to stand up and change it.
With a better voting base starting to overtake the city, this action is slowly beginning to drop, but many wonder if it will end up being a case of too little, too late. This a valid question, and given the propensity of the younger generation to be faster to violence through the mob mentality, it’s a smart question to ask.
