Some used rallies as cover to loot

Police across the nation say faux protesters burglarized, damaged stores miles from marches.

“It was a tsunami of people, and they just started running. ... They used tactics we’ve never seen before.”

Steve Mylett Bellevue, Washington, police chief

Steve Mylett, the police chief in Bellevue, Washington, couldn’t believe what he was seeing, even after intelligence officers warned of social media posts calling for an attack.

On the afternoon of Sunday, May 31, a handful of demonstrators carrying signs gathered at a major intersection in the Seattle suburb. The crowd quickly grew to 40. Then, after two men got on cell phones, 300 more showed up, then 1,000 white, Black and brown.

“It was a tsunami of people, and they just started running,” Mylett said. “I didn’t hear George Floyd’s name once. I didn’t hear, ‘Police reform!’ They just scattered throughout the city. … They used tactics we’ve never seen before.”

Mylett said faux protesters, many dressed in black with hoodies, gloves and COVID-19 masks, ransacked shops and caused millions of dollars in losses. Some ran from one business to the next, trailed by vehicles that stopped outside high-end stores, loaded up, and moved on.

“It’s so unfortunate that peaceful protests got hijacked by criminal networks using them for cover,” Mylett said. “How do you ignore that this tactic was being used from coast to coast, north to south?”

Some of the pillaging that occurred during Floyd protests on the weekend after Memorial Day appeared to have stemmed from otherwise peaceful marches – even as other demonstrators tried to maintain order.

But police, witnesses and videos reveal a different phenomenon from California to New York: Crowds that came together and evaporated with the unseen coordination of a flash mob, using the protests as a cover to loot high-end shops.

“It was a game of whack-a-mole,” said Jennifer Tejada, police chief in Emeryville, California, an Oakland suburb. “They have scouts. They have caravans of cars… We had upwards of 1,000 people doing that.”

Luxury stores ransacked, some miles from demonstrations

Tejada and others said the break-ins typically targeted swanky stores. In Los Angeles, looters headed to Gucci, Prada and other designer stores along Rodeo Drive.

At San Francisco’s Union Square, the sidewalk was littered with bras from Victoria’s Secret and cushioned jewelry boxes from Swarovski.

In New York City’s SoHo district, home fashion designer Christiane Lemieux told a TV news crew she watched masked looters pour out of five cars that had no front license plates. One shop reportedly was stripped bare, with losses estimated at over $1 million.

In Santa Monica, California, burglars shoved aside a female demonstrator who tried to block them from smashing a store window. At a nearby shop, a man rushed outside with his prize – a surfboard – and rode off on a motorcycle.

Police typically weren’t around or didn’t interrupt the invaders. Blocks or miles away, officers in riot gear monitored demonstrators, sometimes scrapping with them.

It remains unclear how many shopping districts and malls were plundered by similar onslaughts nationwide, or to what extent organized criminal operations overlapped with peaceful demonstrations. Authorities are still trying to learn whether the raids simply reflect the power of smartphones or something more calculated.

In Bellevue, Mylett said he’s using video evidence to track down suspects.

“It’s an organized network,” he said, though he acknowledged he can’t prove that yet. “We’re working closely with the FBI and our state partners to identify the hierarchy.”

What spurred the looting?

Over more than two weeks of demonstrations by untold thousands of people, a small fraction broke into stores – just as only a small percentage of the nation’s more than 800,000 sworn officers wear a badge of brutality.

But the scenes, replayed ad nauseam on cable news, sank in.

In Minneapolis, people calmly rolled shopping carts full of merchandise out the door of a Target store. In Tampa, Florida, TV news footage showed masked people, some carrying protest signs, pillaging a CVS as a reporter discussed how theft and violence “create chaos instead of change.”

In Georgia, a pair of local newscasters watched live video of businesses being looted and argued about the significance. A reporter asserted that people stealing merchandise weren’t demonstrators, but “significantly more sophisticated if they are able to take on the Atlanta Police Department in such a calculated way.”

A colleague disagreed, suggesting they were observing the effects of social media. “There’s no leader here. It feels like these are – it’s a spontaneous, leaderless attack on these businesses.”

While it may be satisfying to settle on a single explanation, simplicity seldom captures the nuances of human motivation. Instead, sociologists say looting is spurred by a tangled mix of outrage, avarice, vengeance and opportunism – with a different mix for each person.

Kwame Christian, an Ohio attorney and director of the American Negotiation Institute, said some looters were undoubtedly expressing frustration or trying to even a score, but in the big picture they were drowning a cry for justice.

Can looting be an act of protest?

Though vandalism can be rationalized in the heat of passion, Christian said, theft for personal gain is not so easily reconciled: It undercuts the credibility of demonstrations and alienates not just the victims of crime, but a body politic looking on.

“The most important thing we have at our disposal is the moral high ground,” Christian said. “If someone destroys the moral high ground – acting like they’re part of us and doing bad things – that distorts our message.”

Robert C. Smith, an emeritus professor of political science at San Francisco State University, sees the images differently: What if looting is an organic expression of rage – lashing out not just against police abuses, but against the historic legacy of a societal knee on the neck? What if, he said, big-box stores and swanky malls were targeted because they are perceived as symbols of economic inequality and institutional racism?

Smith said burglary rampages during protests – known colloquially as “Christmas in August” – are seen within the oppressed Black community as a legitimate response to longstanding injustice. Even when plundering is committed by whites, which was widespread in the days following Floyd’s death, the motive may have been racial solidarity rather than self-indulgence, he argued.

At the same time, Smith said, sometimes young people get caught up in the moment and seize a chance to take things.

Smith said he’s too old to be on the street, but he’s been watching the demonstrations. He realizes the optics of smash-and-grabs may hurt civil rights efforts. But they also deliver a message, he said, and griping about looting during demonstrations is like complaining about thunder in a summer storm.