Photos and videos showing piles of empty boxes littered alongside rail tracks in Los Angeles County, California have gone viral as shipping companies say they’ve seen a dramatic spike in railroad theft. Some of the boxes are packages from companies like UPS, Amazon and FedEx.
Summary
- Washington, DC (CNN) Photos and videos showing piles of empty boxes littered alongside rail tracks in Los Angeles County, California have gone viral as shipping companies say they’ve seen a dramatic spike in railroad theft.
- Some of the boxes are packages from companies like UPS, Amazon and FedEx.
- Union Pacific, one of the country’s largest railroad companies, says it may avoid operating in Los Angeles County following the spike in thefts, which it blames on lax prosecution of crimes.
- Union Pacific said last month in a letter to the Los Angeles District Attorney that it saw a 160% year-over-year increase in theft in LA county.
- Union Pacific said in its letter that in the last three months of the year it made over 100 arrests of “active criminals vandalizing our trains” in partnership with the LA police department and Los Angeles Sherriff department.