Democratic Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass pointed to the profits made off of crime as the main motivator for criminals.
Bass appeared for a television interview Saturday to discuss the influx of mass retail theft in her city. Earlier this month, a “flash-rob”-style incident involved more than 30 people in masks stealing $300,000 worth of merchandise from a Nordstrom department store.
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“Well, you know what, things like this happen when there’s profits to be made,” Bass said on The Issue Is as clips from the Nordstrom incident were played during the television segment.
However, the new force that includes the Los Angeles Police Department, Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, agents from the U.S. Marshals Apprehension Task Force, and the FBI Apprehension Task Force recently made 11 arrests, according to Bass. These arrests resulted in felony charges as well. However, when pushed about whether criminal justice reform is playing into an increase in crime, Bass objected, saying: “The reforms that people object to have nothing, nothing to do with these crimes.”
“And one of the things that we need to look at, though, rest assured, they are not selling $10,000 purses in poor communities. They are selling those purses online; they’re selling those two stolen goods online,” Bass said. “And so I believe, when you have a crime like that, all of the actors are culpable and need to be dealt with, and so we need to look at the online sales of stolen property because that’s what it is.”
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Bass pointed to the use of bear spray as one of the “major consequences” of being caught committing felony theft.
Between the fall of 2021 to Aug. 16, there have been at least 170 organized retail thefts in its jurisdiction, which included smash and grabs jobs, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office.
