Today LAPD chose to arrest someone for trying to stop a crime instead of...you know...stopping the crime. When I arrived, a man who identified himself as Dean was next to a locked U-Haul that had been loaded with the belongings of an unhoused man who was not present.
He said he was told by his employer to do so. Clearly he was trying to do his job. However, it's obvious that taking belongings that don't belong to you & that you were not told to collect by the owner, is stealing. Committing a crime cuz your boss told you isn't a valid defense.
It was explained to Dean that he was taking someone's belongings and he did not have the right to do so. We asked him to unlock the truck so we could unload it. He then called the cops. Eventually they rolled up with several cars. 4-6 I would say and like ten officers.
There were maybe 7 of us trying to prevent Dean from completing the robbery. We told the cops what happened. They said in order to do anything, they needed the person whose property it is. This of course is not true.
Regardless, the owner of the property made his way back to the scene and was willing to talk to the cops. This was very brave of him as previous interactions with cops as an unhoused person, as you might imagine, were not great.
Under the guise of coming over to talk to the person whose property it was, they then arrested Tommy who had been first on the scene. Six cops surrounded him and made "a citizen's arrest" saying Dean filled out a form and they were just transporting.
The man whose property it was, seeing the cops become aggressive and arresting the person standing closest to him, left out of what I assumed was the fear the same would happen to him. As they put Tommy in the car, they began shoving multiple people.
While there was this distraction, the thief hurried over to the U-Haul and got in preparing to drive away. They then threatened to tow everyone's cars. Again, as a distraction to enable the thief to get away.
I stepped in front of the U-Haul to try and stop the crime and two cops started shoving me and threatening to arrest me. Yes, that's right. They assaulted me to enable a robbery lmao.
This is like if someone broke into your house and loaded up a truck with your shit, a neighbor called the cops, the cops showed up and gave them the thumbs up, then arrested your neighbor. Their literal defense was we can't stop crimes.
The cops OPENLY ADMIT they have NO DESIRE to stop crimes!!! I'm tweeting this story because it's important for us to openly fight back when shit like this is happening. This was a private citizen. Just some dude. That decided he could carry out a sweep of his own accord.
We cannot let normal ass people think they have the authority to do shit like this. The state will protect this behavior and it is on us to try our best to protect each other. Know what Tommy did when he was released? Encourage folks to check on the guy whose stuff had been taken
Anyway, this is how it is. There is no inbetween. You are either fighting to keep this shit from happening or letting it happen. Please have a conversation with yourself about which side you're on.
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