Thieves are stealing directly from Union Pacific freight trains in downtown Los Angeles, and the problem has exploded in just the past year.
According to Union Pacific, train robberies increased by 356 percent from October 2020 to October 2021. Lupe Valdez, a spokeswoman for the company, told CBSLA that an average of 90 containers are compromised per day. “I have been with Union Pacific for 16 years, and I have never, ever seen this situation to this degree,” she said. (Check out these photos from the Los Angeles Times, and you’ll see what she means.)
Union Pacific has its own private police force that arrests looters. It then turns them over to Los Angeles city and county authorities for prosecution — except those prosecutions haven’t been happening, Union Pacific says.
From a CBSLA report on the situation:
“What my officers tell me on the ground is many times people come back and say, ‘I just got out and I’m back. They can’t do anything to me,’ which I think is insane in terms of our situation, with what we’re faced with,” [Union Pacific spokeswoman Lupe] Valdez said.
Union Pacific has reached out to the District Attorney, blaming lenient sentencing laws for part of the problem, saying its private police force arrested more than 100 people in the last three months, but never got called to testify in a single case.
CBSLA also reports that Union Pacific is looking to avoid that stretch of track entirely, and FedEx and UPS may route their shipments to avoid Los Angeles County.
Last month, Union Pacific wrote a letter to George Gascon, Los Angeles County’s district attorney, asking him to reconsider his office’s policy of not prosecuting various misdemeanor charges. Adrian Guerrero, a Union Pacific spokesman, told Fox News, “While rail theft is a national issue . . . it’s a state issue here in California. . . . The difference is how the criminal justice system and how local law enforcement hold these criminals accountable with legal consequences, and that is not the case in LA County.”
The most populous county in the United States is becoming too dangerous for freight trains to pass through without being looted. This debacle throws another wrench into supply chains. But unlike other aspects of the supply-chain crisis, this issue is much easier to solve: Prosecute and punish people who rob trains.