Behind the Badge
Los Angeles District Attorney Nathan Hochman said the looters and thieves who have preyed on victims of the recent Los Angeles wildfires as “despicable and disgraceful people” and has vowed to go after them as hard as the law allows.
Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer called the more than 50 suspected looters who have struck homes in evacuated zones in the wake of the devastating Los Angeles wildfires, “nothing more than graverobbers.”
Together, the two top law officials in Southern California want to make looting during a local emergency a felony, punishable by prison rather than county jail time. Currently, looting, particularly petty theft, is considered a “wobbler” offense that can either be charged as a misdemeanor or felony.
Hochman said he was surprised to learn that looting ranks no higher than minor residential burglary and wants to see that change. Especially when it comes to those who have suffered so much.
Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer holds a press conference with local law enforcement agencies in 2020.
File photo by Steven Georges/Behind the Badge
In a statement Tuesday, Hochman and Spitzer urged Gov. Gavin Newsom to amend a scheduled special legislative session to add looting-related legislation. Originally planned to address issues around Donald Trump becoming president, the special session will be expanded to include the state’s response to the Los Angeles wildfires, according to Newsom.
Hochman says Newsom has shown support for toughening existing laws, it is still unclear whether the prosecuting measures will make it into a crowded docket or to what extent the DA’s requests will be enacted.
Attorney General Rob Bonta weighed in on the lawbreakers, saying, “I think we need to be slapping people with the harshest penalties right now.”
The prosecutors also call for a new looting-related offense to “allow prosecutors to punish thieves who are sifting through the ashes of burned homes searching for valuables, which is not a crime under current California law,” the statement reads.
Among the penalties, the District Attorney’s statement said conviction would:
- Increase punishment for looting to 2 to 4 years in state prison (from 16-month, 2-year, 3-year county jail wobbler);
- Create a new felony looting offense of trespass with intent to commit larceny, with a 2- to 4-year state prison felony;
- Create a new looting enhancement adding 1 to 3 years for any felony offense committed during a local emergency;
- Require judicial review prior to the release of anyone arrested for looting (no cite and release);
- Designate looting as a serious offense under California’s Three Strikes law;
- Exclude looting from eligibility for diversion, which under current law allows defendants to have their crimes erased from their record as if the arrest never occurred.
Hochman, who had to evacuate his home and says his sister lost her house, said while it’s uplifting to see how residents have sacrificed and pulled together, it only makes it all the more dismaying “that people would see this as an opportunity (to steal).”
“As hundreds of thousands of families face the unimaginable anguish of fleeing their homes, uncertain whether they’ll ever return, the last thing they should fear is the added trauma of criminals preying on their misfortune,” Hochman said. “Opportunistic burglars and looters who target fire victims in their time of crisis are not only breaking the law—they are further deepening the suffering of those already facing unimaginable loss.”
“In the darkest hours of the darkest days of their lives, while bodies are still sitting in graves of ash, criminals are circling like vultures they are to pick through the ashes looking to steal anything of value,” Spitzer said in a statement. “… we must demand accountability, and we must demand punishment, for those who are seizing the opportunity to plunder what little remains.”
Hochman says the clock may run out on looters in the current disaster, but it’s is still important to amend the law.
“I don’t know if the law will be pass before the state of emergency is lifted to come into play,” he said. “Sadly, I don’t think that this will be the only disaster where this kind of thing happens.”
On another front, Hochman said his office will join in AG Bonta’s pledge to seek out those who seek to benefit in the aftermath of the disaster by price-gouging, or raising goods, rents, and services by more than 10 percent since the disaster.
“We’re going after them with the same fervor,” Hochman said, of illegal price hikes, which could last indefinitely as residents try to recover, rebuild, and recoup.
In addition to looters, police are on the lookout for other criminals. Law enforcement officials also fear potentially disastrous and deadly backlash from home and business owners against looters. Some residents are defying evacuation orders and arming themselves to protect their homes from looters, according to KTLA.
ReadyOC provides public safety information, including its Make A Plan initiative created to educate the public on how to develop an emergency disaster plan or Build A Kit in case you need to leave quickly.
ReadyOC focuses on emergency and natural disaster preparedness and is part of the national “If You See Something Say Something,” initiative sponsored by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS).
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