This week, an influx of looters trashed a Nordstrom store inside the Westfield Topanga shopping center located in the San Fernando Valley, causing Mayor Karen Bass to express outrage at the chaos that occurred.
According to local news station KTLA:
“Police stated that although the precise number has not been determined, they believe that 20 to 50 people are involved.”
“The criminals could be seen brutally seizing anything they could carry, with several of them spotted pulling the locks off of fancy handbags and suitcases. Along with a ton of broken goods, store shelves, and display stands were damaged, knocked over, and left all over the floor.”
“A security guard who attempted to step in at one point was assaulted with chemical spray, according to the police. It’s unknown how that guy is doing.”
Mayor Bass made the following statement:
“It is very terrible what occurred today at Nordstrom in the Topanga Mall. It is necessary to hold those individuals accountable for these crimes and similar ones that were perpetrated nearby. The LA Police Department will keep looking for people involved in the crime and working to stop such assaults on stores in the future.”
Only a few years after then-Mayor Eric Garcetti made a similar pledge to redistribute over 10% of the city’s police budget toward “communities of color” in the wake of the city-shaking Black Lives Matter riots, Bass has pledged to recruit additional cops.
I was shopping at Topanga Mall when this happened!! They started stealing all the Designer from Nordstroms ? pic.twitter.com/VY3Z2P0E11
— Noel Escobar (@Noelskeez) August 12, 2023
Since the riots, and particularly after crowds vandalized high-end establishments in the city’s Union Square in November 2021, mass looting has become a common occurrence.
