Security footage shows heartless crooks rifling through multi-million dollar homes that were evacuated during the Los Angeles wildfires— with some even stealing an Emmy.
The footage shows burglars wearing gray sweats and carrying bookbags walking through the huge stairway of a Palisades house — seemingly one estimated to be worth around $34 million.
They stole property worth at least $200,000 — with one of the suspects, Travon Coleman, 27, then seriously injuring someone by crashing into their car while trying to flee the police, according to Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman.
The thieves stole $200,000 worth of property.LA District Attorney
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Three people were arrested for that raid — including one who was allegedly armed — with another six also charged for looting homes evacuated in Altadena because of the deadly Eaton Fire
They include a group who stole an Emmy, the DA said, without detailing who it belonged to or what category it was for. However, cops quickly nabbed the suspects and recovered the award.
At least two of those charged so far — Coleman and Martrell Peoples, 22 — face up to life in prison if convicted.
“The question is not if, but when, you will be caught if you engage in these crimes,” Hochman told a press conference on Monday.
The inside of a looted house in Altadena.LA District Attorney
“These crimes are appalling and represent a direct attack on our community during a time of unprecedented loss and vulnerability.
“Let me be clear: If you exploit this tragedy to prey on victims of these deadly fires, we will find you and we will prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law.”
A sign seen in front of a house in Altadena warning potential looters during the wildfires on Jan. 13, 2025.Photo by FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images So far,police have made more than 40 arrests related to the firesin Los Angeles County.
Those include charges of burglary, looting, curfew violations, possession of narcotics, impersonating an officer, unauthorized drone usage, and possession of firefighters.
LAPD Assistant Chief Blake Chow warned those planning to take advantage of the historic crisis that they are “not gonna get away with it.”
“I just wanted to tell the residents of Los Angeles, this team has your back.”
TPS prevents deportations for 18 months, ever renewable, on grounds that home countries are simply too dangerous to send the migrants back.
“It was determined that an 18-month TPS extension is warranted based on the severe humanitarian emergency the country continues to face due to political and economic crises under the inhumane [Venezuelan President Nicolás] Maduro regime,” a January 10, 2025 Department of Homeland Security press release announced, going on to cite high levels of crime and violence and lack of access to food, medicine, healthcare, water, electricity, and fuel.
Venezuela certainly is terrible, but left unsaid is that most of the deportation-protected Venezuelans hadn’t been living in Venezuela.
Almost every one of the thousands of Venezuelans crossing Biden’s open border already lived in perfectly safe, prosperous other countries that had granted them asylum, residency, and work authorizations, or otherwise tolerated their presence off-book — such as Colombia, Ecuador and Chile.
They came for higher wages — not due to any danger they faced.
I’ve personally interviewed hundreds of Venezuelans these past four years. Not one of them told me they were coming from Venezuela.
“I looooved Ecuador! It’s beautiful. The people are very kind. They have a lot of values. And the fruit, in particular, is very good! Anything with onions is very good!” said one well-appointed Venezuelan woman I met in Juarez who had just received U.S. permission to enter on a humanitarian protection permit. “It’s a very generous place, a very beautiful place.”
Haitian migrants threw out Brazilian passports like these, which writer Todd Bensman collected, because it showed they already had a safe country to live in. They preferred to cross Biden’s open border and falsely declare “asylum.”Todd Bensman
She positively beamed at the good memories of having lived in Ecuador the last seven years making a good living as manager of a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant in Quito, loving every minute of life there.
She and her boyfriend only decided to abandon Ecaudor upon learning that those crazy Americans were suddenly letting everyone in to notch up to an even richer lifestyle.
I heard the same stories from Haitians, who also received their extended deportation stays from Biden.
Every one of them crossing the US border had been living safely in Chile and Brazil, which took Haitians in by their hundreds of thousands starting a decade ago and ever since.
How to get around this inconvenient fact when crossing the US border and claiming you can’t be returned to Haiti because it’s just too terrible?
Chilean ID cards abandoned by migrants attempting to seek asylum in the United States.Todd Bensman
And throw away any evidence of it once you cross the Rio Grande. I’ve found hundreds of their burned, torn, and twisted up Chilean ID cards and Brazilian passports that would prove their lies if American authorities found them.
Many of their children were born in those countries and held citizenship.
One story emblematic of many I heard from Haitians came from a 24-year-old Haitian man I met at a hostel full of his countrymen in the far northwestern Costa Rica town of La Cruz in 2021.
He and his brother sheltered in place in Santiago, Chile, four years earlier, in late 2016, as Donald Trump was on the campaign trail vowing to deport illegal immigrants.
Mexican ID cards belonging to migrants.Todd Bensman
While waiting out the Trump years, the young man told me he found work as a baker and an Uber Eats driver. He and his brother made good money and built their savings fund. The brother was already in the US and flagged him to come too.
I wondered aloud if something bad in Chile pushed him to escape north.
“Did the government of Chile ever threaten you?” I asked.
“No, that never happened there.”
“So, you were never afraid?
“No, never.”
This fellow had loved Chile. He showed me iPhone videos of beautiful Chilean beaches he’d enjoyed and others depicting urban Santiago nightlife. His work afforded him his favorite fashionable clothing brands on the internet.
“It’s a nice country,” he said of Chile.
The brothers only decided to abandon that nice life because the Biden win “makes it easier to get into the States.”
“It’s the reason,” he added.
Asked how he would compare his Santiago life to the one he left in Haiti, he promptly answered: “A thousand times better.”
Then why come to the United States border now, when his life in Chile was so peaceful and non-threatening? I asked.
“Because,” he said, chuckling, “life in the United States will be a million times better.”
The Trump administration will, of course, need to diplomatically muscle these countries to take back their former residents.
But the administration and its supporters must know that doomsday advocate claims that removing “protective status” from these most numerous of nationalities who crossed are flagrant lies.
These deportations will not place these immigrants in harm’s way but, rather, put them back to safe, happy places they liked for years and which, by most accounts, liked them back.
It’s important that the American people know that suggesting anything else is a lie.
Todd Bensman, a senior national security fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, is the author of “Overrun: How Joe Biden Unleashed the Greatest Border Crisis in U.S. History.”
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