Union Pacific has its own police force, and just cut the number of their own police officers from 60 to 8 along that route:
https://www.lataco.com/union-pacific-theft-police-laid-off/
The LAPD has a $3b a year budget, and crime is down:
https://twitter.com/pplscitycouncil/status/14744980717110108...
Coincidentally the LAPD is trying to get a 12% budget increase:
https://twitter.com/equalityalec/status/1484966544681619461?...
So we have a private company who fires 80% of their police force (not security! They have arrest powers!), then there is a shocking, SHOCKING rise in theft, which the LAPD turns into a cry for more funding despite crime being down. Remember that the reason railroads got the right to have their own police force was because it was their RESPONSIBILITY to protect the goods they carried - this is just shifting responsibility from them to the public.
You’re also ignoring the fact that the arrested criminals are handed over to the LA criminal justice system, where the city prosecutors (led by Soros-funded progressive restorative justice advocate George Gascon) reduced/dismisses charges and releases repeat offenders back into the public. This is exactly what the Union Pacific has complained about (https://www.up.com/cs/groups/public/@uprr/@newsinfo/document...).
Finally, the claim that crime is down in cities practicing restorative justice is completely disconnected from reality and laughable. Individuals and businesses see and experience crime regularly and simply don’t bother reporting it anymore. Nothing is done about these incidents by city leadership and prosecutors, criminals aren’t brought to justice, and insurance claims are expensive due to deductibles. Crime is therefore, predictably, grossly underreported.
> Soros-funded
Is even relevant? You mentioned it twice as though it changes any elements of your argument.
Sacramento - Noah Phillips - Lost
San Diego - Geneviéve Jones-Wright - Lost
Alameda - Pamela Price - Lost
Contra Costa - Diana Becton - Won
Three of the four candidates highlighted by the article for getting support from Soro's PAC lost. The one who won was the incumbent in that race.
I don't think we need to invent any political conspiracy theories here. My point with following up on the earlier article is that voters have stuck with the status quo. Invoking big names like George Soros gets attention, but the banal truth is that voters tend to stick with what they know.
The whole situation is very upsetting because previously safe and beautiful cities have been turned into dangerous slums. And during COVID, the fact that large quantities of PPE and test kits and so on have been stolen from these trains and just discarded on the tracks (not valuable / sellable) is incredibly harmful to the public on a whole other level.