Miami Fl – Miami area police arrested more than 50 suspected looters during Hurricane Irma, including 26 people who were accused of breaking into a single Wal-Mart store, authorities said on Tuesday.
Join our WhatsApp groupSubscribe to our Daily Roundup Email
City officials on Tuesday lifted a local 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. curfew that had been in place since Sunday. As normality began to return, police commanders said officers will work 12-hour shifts, 24 hours a day, to discourage any more criminality.
“I said we would not tolerate criminal activity or looting or anybody who takes advantage of our residents,” Deputy Chief of Police Luis Cabrera said at a news conference. “I was not joking.”
The Wal-Mart incident took place on Saturday night at a store on the north side of the City of Miami, said Miami-Dade Police Department spokesman Alvaro Zabaleta.
Among others suspected of looting were six men arrested on Monday and accused of breaking into stores at the Midtown Miami shopping complex, near the fashionable Wynwood district, before making off with merchandise that included shoes, bags and laptops.
The looting attempts spanned the city, said Miami Mayor Tomas Regalado, from the well-heeled Brickell and downtown neighborhoods to the low-income Liberty City and Little Haiti areas. He said police will stay vigilant as the cleanup goes on.
Officers have also been busy trawling roads that can be perilous for motorists because power cuts shut off traffic lights at intersections and streets have accumulated shredded vegetation spread by the storm’s powerful winds.
“We have never experienced, not even with Hurricane Andrew, the amount of trees that are downed in the city,” Regalado told the news conference. Hurricane Andrew hit Florida in 1992.
Since Irma began bearing down on the state late last week, authorities have been warning any would-be looters against taking advantage of the situation.
Rick Maglione, the police chief of Fort Lauderdale, about 30 miles (48 km) north of Miami, told residents to stay home during the storm and look after their loved ones. “Going to prison over a pair of sneakers is a fairly bad life choice,” Maglione said in a statement.
Miami police posted a photo on Facebook of several accused looters sitting in a jail cell under the caption: “Thinking about looting? Ask these guys how that turned out. #stayindoors.”
Oh, I thought it was the Black Lives Matter movement trying to save the stores merchandise from washing away!
they all look like having NEW sneakers..
Were their names Yechiel or Mendel, or were they Leroy and Juan?
You mean new expensive sneakers!
We are not talking about basic necessities here, such as food or diapers for babies. The looters are scum, who are just taking advantage, of a very bad situation. They know that the chances of everyone being caught is probably slim to none, so why not take part. A similar atmosphere prevailed in Brooklyn, and the rest of NYC, during the blackout of 1977, in the summer.
Look at the beautiful cars that they are driving. They don’t look like they are suffering from poverty .