You only believe some things when you see them with your own eyes; and then you no longer believe those eyes because what you see there is so monstrous, so unimaginable that your brain tells you: no, something like that can’t happen! You’re standing on this bridge in downtown Los Angeles, with tracks for freight trains underneath, and there they are: tens of thousands of packages, stolen from the trains that pass here, looted and thrown away.
“What a sight,” says someone who is also standing on the bridge and also sees the contrast – miles of hills made of empty parcel boxes in front of palm trees and the skyline of LA: “Please don’t forget: This is not a Third World country .This is the United States of America!” This, so the message goes, is the country that loves to celebrate itself for its own greatness and so rarely lives up to this claim.
The sight is symbolic of the state of affairs in this country and perhaps of capitalism itself, and it all gets much worse as you descend to the railroad tracks; then you see, What is stolen: Rapid Covid tests, for example, currently in short supply in Los Angeles, parents of school children pay up to $35 per test. Medicines torn out of the packaging. Clothing. Jewellery. Electronic equipment. The thieves leave other things behind: toilet paper, dog food, shampoo. It’s there, between the empty packages. Apparently not worth it.
Unused Covid test tubes lie in the dirt.
(Photo: PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP)
“It’s just the stuff from just before Christmas to now,” says Louis Barosas. He works for the railway company union Pacific, on Sunday afternoon he and his colleagues clear the tracks of rubbish and load everything into vehicles. They do this every month, most recently on December 14th, and that makes this sight even more dramatic: everything lying around there has only been thrown there in the past 35 days. The day before, a freight train with 17 cars had derailed at this point; it’s still unclear if it happened because of the garbage on the tracks, but it’s very possible.
Attacks on employees are not uncommon
According to Union Pacific, 90 containers are broken open every day, and the damage last year was five million dollars. “This number does not include the losses that customers suffered when replacing the stolen goods,” says the letter to District Attorney George Gascón, which is available to SZ. The overall damage can hardly be estimated because companies often do not report the looting; According to conservative estimates, it should be in the mid-double-digit millions in Los Angeles County alone. In October, the number of crimes on Union-Pacific train routes in Los Angeles rose by 356 percent compared to the same month last year: “This includes not only theft, but also armed attacks on our employees.”
The employees are busy for days with the clean-up work.
(Photo: Jürgen Schmieder)
There is a hub in the Lincoln Heights neighborhood for all the goods that are brought to Los Angeles. The trains are braked at Lincoln Park three kilometers to the east, they then trundle quite slowly through one of the oldest residential areas in the metropolis, the tracks and thus the trains are easily accessible, you can walk across from the sidewalk, there are no fences. Of course it sounds a bit like the Wild West, like the unforgettable Western The Great Train Robbery from 1903, but that’s how it is in Lincoln Heights these days, only with trucks instead of horses.
Eyewitnesses report two types of theft. Some proceed with almost military precision, which is why the police suspect organized crime or gangs: A van stops on Alhambra Avenue right next to the tracks; out come a few people who know exactly what they are doing and what they want. Apparently they had already broken open the containers with bolt cutters near Lincoln Park, and now packages are tumbling out; the thieves check on the spot whether they want the contents. Sometimes there are homeless people hired by the gangs.
Witnesses say it is amazing how quickly such a looting takes place
Popular: small packages addressed to private individuals from delivery services such as Amazon or UPS; inside are obviously worthwhile things like designer handbags, tools and toys. Witnesses say it is amazing how quickly such a looting takes place; two, maybe three minutes, then the thieves were gone. Video recordings show that it is sometimes even faster, 30 seconds for 17 packages.
That precision leads to the second type of theft seen Sunday: A homeless man descends to the tracks, looks around a bit, then puts toilet paper and a bag of dog food in a plastic bag. He looks at Barosas and his colleagues, who shrug as if to say why not – we’d just throw it in the garbage truck too. The homeless man nods and walks on, picking up a few other things under a bridge and putting them in the bag. According to Barosas, local residents also pass by in broad daylight; Let’s see if there’s anything there, maybe you can use it yourself or sell it. This everyone for themselves is so American that the symbolism literally jumps out at you.
Everywhere you look: garbage and destruction.
(Photo: Jürgen Schmieder)
“It looks awful out there,” says German Hurtado of the Los Angeles Police Department, who works in this area, which is considered to be poor and therefore prone to theft: “You just have to be aware of one thing: It’s not just any Stuff that’s being transported on the trains is worth millions of dollars. It’s goods that someone might need badly – and you should know that there are weapons in those containers too. Everything is transported on these trains these days.”
It actually looks like something out of a disaster movie in Lincoln Heights, as if a tsunami (there happened to be a warning in LA last weekend after the volcanic eruption in the Pacific) devastated this area, and the first question is of course: Can this looting be stopped? not prevent? It is a distance of just three kilometers and only two pairs of tracks lead to the transshipment point.
24/7 processing – deliver, deliver, deliver, says US President
The looting, therefore, becomes a symbol of where convenience capitalism can lead. You can have just about anything delivered to your home in Los Angeles, even marijuana or drugs that your doctor prescribed after your video call diagnosis. Demand has increased significantly during the pandemic, with the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach reporting shortages and declaring states of emergency just before Christmas. US President Joe Biden’s response: 24/7 handling – deliver, deliver, deliver. The fact that these transports of goods worth 450 billion dollars a year are also secured was apparently of secondary importance at first.
In the letter to District Attorney Gascón, Union Pacific claims to have increased security measures and, for example, also to use drones. More than 100 people were arrested, but many had already boasted at the time of arrest that the charges against them would be dropped anyway. Lax rules in Los Angeles County are to blame, according to which criminals are released after less than 24 hours and without bail. The reaction from Gascón’s office: There are already charges, many of which have had to be dropped due to a lack of evidence. Of course, those who continue to loot know that too.
All of this means that the pictures from Los Angeles are now becoming a political issue. It’s not hard to see a larger context in images of trash and dirt, looting and derailed trains, organized crime and homeless gang henchmen. It is proof of Biden’s failed infrastructure policy, his opponents are now saying, and the man standing on the bridge filming himself with the garbage in the background is not just anyone. It’s Nathan Hochman. The Republican wants to be Attorney General of California, his issues are: crime and homelessness, so let’s really clean up in Cali. Naturally, such a disaster selfie campaign is: America, 2022.