Watch now (6 mins) | Gentle reader, For too long, significant and beautiful and useful pieces of our city’s heritage have been spirited away by metal thieves who sell them to unscrupulous dealers for scrap value. And nothing is ever done to stop this vile trade. Isn’t it time it was?
Yes, but nothing at all is being done *locally*. By the time my cats get to some central location hours or days away from here, there's no accountability. They're not going after the "middle" fish at all, the ones who buy the cats from the local thieves. The individuals targeting my area of Silver Lake aren't out there with big cars, carrying around dozens of these things at a time - there's someone nearby paying them $50 or whatever every trip. It's not being made at all dangerous for these first level buyers. There needs to be a clamp at both the top and bottom ends, because clearly just busting a couple of big operations isn't doing anything about it at street level.
Still, I recognize that's not what your story is about. My point is yes, the thefts from the memorials is sad and appalling, but hardly earth-shattering, given nobody noticed them, or the damage to the fence until a particular holiday. I can't park my car overnight on any street in Los Angeles because I would surely notice a problem immediately. And I just get brushed off with these "look at big bust" stories, like nothing should be done locally.
I feel like the councillors have bigger fish to fry.
Yes, thefts of memorials for metal value is terrible, but personally, I'd prefer to see more resources put towards stopping/punishing the thefts of catalytic converters for precious metals value. I had two stolen within five months, both from locked/gated areas. And there was security camera coverage from both incidents, but the police do nothing to go after the buyers. Catalytic converter thefts have real world financial impacts on individuals.
I'm sorry about the attacks on memorials, but I'd really rather see councilors doing the less sexy work of helping hundreds of actual people as opposed to flag waving to go after heartstrings.
That's sad. People who steal valuable artifacts like that have no ethics at all.
Yes, but nothing at all is being done *locally*. By the time my cats get to some central location hours or days away from here, there's no accountability. They're not going after the "middle" fish at all, the ones who buy the cats from the local thieves. The individuals targeting my area of Silver Lake aren't out there with big cars, carrying around dozens of these things at a time - there's someone nearby paying them $50 or whatever every trip. It's not being made at all dangerous for these first level buyers. There needs to be a clamp at both the top and bottom ends, because clearly just busting a couple of big operations isn't doing anything about it at street level.
Still, I recognize that's not what your story is about. My point is yes, the thefts from the memorials is sad and appalling, but hardly earth-shattering, given nobody noticed them, or the damage to the fence until a particular holiday. I can't park my car overnight on any street in Los Angeles because I would surely notice a problem immediately. And I just get brushed off with these "look at big bust" stories, like nothing should be done locally.
I feel like the councillors have bigger fish to fry.
Yes, thefts of memorials for metal value is terrible, but personally, I'd prefer to see more resources put towards stopping/punishing the thefts of catalytic converters for precious metals value. I had two stolen within five months, both from locked/gated areas. And there was security camera coverage from both incidents, but the police do nothing to go after the buyers. Catalytic converter thefts have real world financial impacts on individuals.
I'm sorry about the attacks on memorials, but I'd really rather see councilors doing the less sexy work of helping hundreds of actual people as opposed to flag waving to go after heartstrings.
We're sorry you were robbed twice--it's so expensive to replace, and we know it was hard to get replacements. There has actually been a national response to the catalytic converter thefts, because they were crossing state lines. A family up north got busted last year, along with numerous co-conspirators. https://www.carscoops.com/2023/10/california-family-made-38-million-in-600-million-catalytic-converter-theft-ring/