Several members of Orange County’s congressional delegation said Friday, Aug. 18, that they are working on ways to combat flash-mob style retail thefts and a wave of home burglaries that recently have hit high-end department stores and residences in Orange County.
“We’re seeing these terrible images of stores being broken into,” said Rep. Young Kim, R-Anaheim Hills. “We’ve been seeing this maybe, once-a-week, in the past, but now we’re seeing this every day, too frequently.”
During a public discussion in Irvine, Kim and fellow Orange County Reps. Michelle Steel and Lou Correa told members of the Orange County Taxpayers Association that they’re working on everything from new legislation to international diplomacy as a way to end the crime sprees that recently have hit hard in Southern California.
Just days before the meeting, an estimated $100,000 worth of designer handbags was stolen during a mob theft from the Gucci store in Costa Mesa’s South Coast Plaza. That incident, which allegedly involved up to ten thieves, followed a string of similar robberies in July, when representatives of Kay’s Jewelers in Irvine Spectrum and Jewels By Alan in the Irvine Park Place shopping center told police that they lost more than $1 million worth of merchandise during separate mob-style thefts at their stores.
Another type of crime — described by some in law enforcement as “burglary tourism” — also has escalated recently in Southern California, where several homeowners have been victimized by thieves described by authorities as professional burglars from South America.
The uptick in high-profile crime has prompted action locally. Gov. Gavin Newsom to ask the California Highway Patrol to triple its resources in the Los Angeles region and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has established a task forced aimed at cracking down on retail theft.
Now, legislators from Washington, D.C. are stepping in.
When asked what can be done at the federal level to curb…
Read the full article here
