Los Angeles – Dozens of freight cars are broken into every day on Los Angeles’s railways by thieves who take advantage of the trains’ stops to loot packages bought online, leaving thousands of gutted boxes and products that will never reach their destinations.
Forget individual homes along with products on the porch, thieves in Los Angeles wait until the long freight trains are immobilized on the tracks, and then climb onto the freight containers, whose locks they easily break with the help of bolt cutters and ravage packages from Amazon, Target, Wal Mart among just a few.
Union Pacific has seen a 160 percent rise in the thefts in Los Angeles county since December 2020, according to AFP
On average, more than 90 containers were vandalized every day in Los Angeles County in the last quarter of 2021.
While Union Pacific has increased surveillance and arrested more than 100 people over there last 12 weeks, authorities say it doesn’t mean much.
“While criminals are being caught and arrested, charges are reduced to a misdemeanor or petty offense, and the person is back on the streets in less than 24 hours after paying a nominal fine,” said a spokesman for the rail operator.
“In fact, criminals boast to our officers that there is no consequence,” he said.
Union Pacific wrote to the Los Angeles County attorney’s office at the end of December asking them to reconsider a leniency policy introduced at the end of 2020 for such offenses.
