Nothing is sacred in 2023 America. Living proof; South Los Angeles simply skilled its fifth incident of violence at one of many metropolis’s well-known taco vehicles in every week.
Prospects and homeowners have been focused by a duo of gun-wielding robbers who threaten to shoot staff as a way to get entry to the until. The latest theft early Monday morning left one particular person with a non-life threatening gunshot wound and one other particular person with a unspecified harm additionally requiring medical care, in response to KTLA 5. A number of gun pictures had been reported and police recovered a number of shell casing from the truck at West Manchester Avenue and St. Andrews Place.
On Friday, the thieves hit two stands in a row — one on the intersection of East 103rd Road and Compton Avenue. And final Monday a truck was held up at 103rd Road and Avalon Boulevard. Police advised KTLA 5 they imagine there’s a gang concentrating on the vehicles:
Police stated a minimum of 5 completely different taco stands have been robbed this week alone. They imagine the robbers are a part of a bunch of younger Hispanic males of their teenagers and 20s particularly concentrating on taco distributors. Whether or not the earlier robberies had been dedicated by the identical group stays underneath investigation.
“I feel it’s very scary,” stated Ronald Evans. “What if they arrive throughout my lunch hour? Like right here I’m at a taco truck making an attempt to get some meals.”
“These folks [taco vendors] spend their hard-earned cash and so they threat their lives being out right here and so they’re making an attempt to serve the group genuine meals,” stated resident Arturo Gonzalez.
“They want security and safety,” stated Jennifer Campos, who works close by. “A variety of it has gotten out of hand. You see so many distributors in all places, however that’s their means of earning profits. They’ve to purchase issues, they must pay their lease and placed on meals on the desk for his or her children.”
Taco vehicles and Los Angeles have gone collectively like rice and beans since Raul Martinez opened the primary taco truck outdoors of an LA bar in 1974. The concept was so wildly fashionable, Martinez would go on to open a restaurant after which a franchise of eating places, Taco King, to turn out to be a multimillionaire.
The standard taco truck present low value, scrumptious meals which are the merchandise of laborious work and the entrepreneurial spirit that supposedly constructed this nation. So I’ve only one query for the robbers: In the end, have you ever no decency? These persons are doing the lord’s work of distributing the best meals identified to man as a way to assist their households and also you’re gonna rush up on them like this? Because of this we will’t have good issues.
Not solely ought to these thieves be delivered to justice, they need to be expelled from California altogether.