Nothing is sacred in 2023 America. Case in level; South Los Angeles simply skilled its fifth incident of violence at one of many metropolis’s well-known taco vans in per week.
Customers and house owners have been focused by a duo of gun-wielding robbers who threaten to shoot workers as a way to get entry to the until. The most up-to-date theft early Monday morning left one individual with a non-life threatening gunshot wound and one other individual with a unspecified damage additionally requiring medical care, in line with KTLA 5. Multiple gun photographs have 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 Street and Compton Avenue. And final Monday a truck was held up at 103rd Street and Avalon Boulevard. Police instructed KTLA 5 they consider there’s a gang concentrating on the vans:
Police stated no less than 5 totally different taco stands have been robbed this week alone. They consider the robbers are a part of a bunch of younger Hispanic males of their teenagers and 20s particularly concentrating on taco distributors. Whether the earlier robberies have been dedicated by the identical group stays underneath investigation.
“I think it’s very scary,” stated Ronald Evans. “What if they come during my lunch hour? Like here I am at a taco truck trying to get some food.”
“These people [taco vendors] spend their hard-earned money and they risk their lives being out here and they’re trying to serve the community authentic food,” stated resident Arturo Gonzalez.
“They need safety and protection,” stated Jennifer Campos, who works close by. “A lot of it has gotten out of hand. You see so many vendors everywhere, but that’s their way of making money. They have to buy things, they have to pay their rent and put on food on the table for their kids.”
Taco vans 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 widespread, Martinez would go on to open a restaurant after which a franchise of eating places, Taco King, to grow to be a multimillionaire.
The humble taco truck present low value, scrumptious meals which are the merchandise of onerous work and the entrepreneurial spirit that supposedly constructed this nation. So I’ve only one query for the robbers: At lengthy final, have you ever no decency? Those individuals are doing the lord’s work of distributing the best meals identified to man as a way to help their households and also you’re gonna rush up on them like this? This is why we are able to’t have good issues.
Not solely ought to these thieves be delivered to justice, they need to be expelled from California altogether.
Source: jalopnik.com