A person can only take so much. When that person is a business owner, the proprietor of an arcade who has had a mob of homeless people invade his store over a long weekend, wrecking the place and stealing thousands upon thousands of dollars of merchandise and equipment and hauling it all off to a homeless encampment, only to be told by the police that they can’t do anything, we can hardly blame him for taking matters into his own hands.
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The owner of a California arcade that was looted by a mob of vagrants ended up raiding nearby homeless camps looking for his stolen merch after the cops told him their hands were tied.
Moments after Will Luna closed up his Extraordinaire Arcade in San Bernadino on Wednesday night, a woman who had been hiding in its attic dropped inside and unlocked the door, security video shows.
Then a pack of at least 18 people spent the Thanksgiving holiday — Wednesday night into early Friday –stripping the business of anything that wasn’t tied down — including an X-Men arcade machine.
We’re seeing more and more of this in recent years. Sometimes when the business is closed, and worse, sometimes when it’s open. A mob of robbers will descend on a business, breaking and looting, leaving a business that an owner may well have spent years building in shambles. The thieves, it seems, are growing more and more audacious by the day.
That’s what happened to Will Luna. And what happened next is also something that is happening all too often.
“They were just in there, in and out. They had a free-for-all all,” Luna told The Post, speaking from a Best Buy where he was buying high-end gaming monitors to replace the ones the criminals made off with.
The homeless thieves also stole the arcade’s security cameras, gaming consoles, a debit card reader, snacks, the keys to all of the game machines and even an X-Men arcade cabinet, which they dragged toward a nearby homeless camp, security camera footage showed.
Luna said police performed a basic investigation into the despicable crime, but before the cops got anywhere with their probe, a vagrant told him Friday that he had spotted the owner’s stolen merchandise at a homeless camp behind the building. Luna said he decided to take matters into his own hands.
“I just went through all their tents. I started knocking that s–t down,” Luna said. “I was ripping all the tents up. And I start finding my stuff.”
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Bravo to Will Luna for his fortitude and his willingness to go into dangerous territory to retrieve his property, although he would have been well-advised to take along some friends.
And who could blame him? Everyone has a breaking point. Will Luna obviously reached his. The downside is that what he did was dangerous, and living in California, it’s not as though he could arm himself for self-protection before entering an encampment that almost certainly has a healthy leavening of drug addicts in addition to the thieves.
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As is so often the case where these Bidenville homeless encampments are involved, the problem isn’t just about stealing.
The looters also broke into a salon next to Luna’s arcade, smashing the windows and stealing the register.
He said all of the businesses in the little retail and worship center — which includes a pizza restaurant and a church in addition to the salon and arcade – have been broken into in recent years as three nearby homeless camps have grown.
He said men would stand next to the windows of the salon and masturbate while gawking at the female customers, pushing the owner to call the cops to clear them out.
Shortly after, someone set the shop on fire.
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There will be more incidents like this until our major cities get this under control. There have to be consequences to these kinds of acts, the theft of people’s property, and the violation of a citizen’s rights. The government’s only legitimate purpose is to protect the liberty and property of the citizens. The government of the city of San Bernadino has failed in this purpose. The government of the state of California has likewise failed in this purpose. Municipal, state, and county governments all over the republic have failed in this purpose.
There will be more incidents like this where the citizens whose rights were violated, and whose property was stolen, have no recourse but to take matters into their own hands. And it’s only a matter of time before violence ensues. California, of course, makes it near-impossible for the citizenry to arm themselves in self-defense or to use arms to protect their rights or property.