Why Did Philadelphia Police Fail to Stop Organized Looting Campaign?
17:58 GMT 29.09.2023 (Updated: 18:27 GMT 29.09.2023)
© AP Photo / Matt Rourke / A ransacked liquor store in Philadelphia, Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2023, after a co-ordinated campaign of looting across the city
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Stores have been forced to close after a wave of coordinated looting hit US cities. Mark Fusetti, a retired police sergeant of the Philadelphia Court Warrant Unit, and former CIA officer John Kiriakou said sympathy for the rioters was misplaced.
Tuesday night's campaign of looting coincided with a protest in the city after a judge dismissed charges against Philadelphia Police Department officer Mark Dial over the fatal shooting of 27-year-old Eddie Irizarry during a traffic stop in August.
The Philadelphia District Attorney's Office swiftly filed a motion to reinstate the charges on Tuesday afternoon, hours before the rioting began.
TikTok "influencer" Dayjia Blackwell, better known as 'Meatball', posted videos of the looters meeting up at a parking lot to coordinate the raids, removing their car license plates to make it harder for police to identify them.
“Tell the police they’re either gonna lock me up tonight, or it’s gonna get lit, it’s gonna be a movie,” she said in a challenge to the authorities, encouraging the thieves by shouting: "Free iPhones" in a later video post.
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Blackwell and other looters were surprised when the Apple Store's security system automatically locked the stolen devices and set them to sound an alarm — and began smashing them.
In contrast, Blackwell appeared tearful in a mugshot photo released by the Philadelphia PD on Wednesday following her arrest along with more than 50 other suspects. She was charged with burglary, criminal trespassing, conspiracy, criminal mischief, riot with the intent to commit a felony, and criminal use of a communication facility.
Philadelphia Police Department mugshot of TikTok influencer Dayjia Blackwell, AKA Meatball, during her arrest on September 27 2023
Interim Chief of Police John Stanford said Blackwell "may be responsible for a lot of other people being arrested because she encouraged those folks and they were, quite frankly, dumb enough to engage and participate and there are going to be consequences for that."
Interim Philadelphia Police Department chief John Stanford tweets about arrests following organised looting of stores in the city
© Photo : John M. Stanford/X / Interim Philadelphia Police Department chief John Stanford tweets about arrests following organised looting of stores in the city
On same day of the Philadelphia looting incident, the US National Retail Federation (NRF) reported that its member firms had seen an alarming rise in "inventory shrink" — an industry term for losses due to theft — as they are targeted by organised crime rings.
Losses soared from $93.9 billion in 2021 to $112.1 billion in 2022. "Retailers are seeing unprecedented levels of theft coupled with rampant crime in their stores, and the situation is only becoming more dire," said David Johnston, NRF vice-president for asset protection and retail operations.
Walmart Chief Financial Officer John Rainey said the chain was "putting armed guards in certain cases" in its stores in the worst-hit cities.
27 September 2023, 10:10 GMT
Retired Philadelphia police sergeant Mark Fusetti told Sputnik that rioters and looters "see an opportunity with any protest that's going to happen in the city."
"There are groups of people that will take advantage of that. They know with the protests down at Center City in Philadelphia, they knew a lot of the attention of the police was going to be down there," Fusetti said. "So that opens up an opportunity for them to go into the neighborhoods and ransack the drug stores, the liquor stores, the shoe stores and some of the clothes stores."
He said the criminals had a history of coordinating their attacks across the city via social media apps.
"They hit one place, all the cops will go to that place, they leave, they go to another place," Fusetti explained. "We watched it first-hand. We went down and had some video of it and they were hitting stores. And as soon as the cops come, they would all leave together and then they would go to a whole other section of the city and do the same thing over."
The former police sergeant blamed the Democrat District Attorney (DA) Larry Krasner — whose office defied the judge's decision by reinstating the charges against Dial — for his leniency with looters.
"They're not afraid of being arrested. And even if they are, they have the confidence that the DA ... won't prosecute them," Fusetti stressed. "He will give them a pass, just like he did for a lot of the people that were arrested the other night. He asked for most of them to not even at the post any bail to get out. So they already go into this knowing: 'hey, even if I am caught, chances are I'm going to get the case thrown out or nothing's going to happen to me'."
Former CIA officer John Kiriakou told Sputnik that the looting raids were forcing stores to close down, leaving staff out of work and neighborhoods without places to buy necessities — even in the US capital.
"Many of these stores that are being raided and looted are in areas where the stores are necessary for residents to live normal lives," he said.
"There was a Wal-Mart right here in Washington on Capitol Hill. It was the only Wal-Mart on Capitol Hill that was walkable. And because of events like this, where gangs of people just go in and just strip the place bare, Wal-Mart closed," Kiriakou explained.. "A lot of residents in the neighborhood relied on Wal-Mart to be their only source of fresh fruits and vegetables and fresh meats."
He said citizens had finally had enough of the "unfettered" looting by youths who then "make a fortune by selling all these stolen goods on eBay or on Craigslist or Facebook marketplace."
"Most employees don't have an ownership stake, and so why would they start cracking heads? They just stand by as as these gangs of people strip the place bare. But finally, enough is enough. You've got to put your foot down," Kyriakou said.
He rejected the argument by New York Congresswoman Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez that the looters were only stealing to feed themselves and their families.
"I don't want to begrudge somebody a loaf of bread to feed your family, but when you're going to go with a gang of people into a Home Depot and steal $10,000 worth of power saws, that's not that's not stealing bread to feed your family. That's committing grand larceny."
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