Philadelphia businesses are pleading with people to stop looting amid civil unrest in the city.
Following the shooting of 27-year-old Walter Wallace Jr., Black Lives Matter protesters have taken over the city to protest police brutality and call for justice.
Amid protests across the city, thieves have taken the distraction as an opportunity to indulge in looting stores and vandalizing buildings.
As the authorities claimed, some one thousand looters resorted to plundering local businesses and stores on Tuesday night, prompting businesses to display signs and plead with thieves to leave them alone.
“It’s been looted already,” one of the signs displayed outside a store read. Another one said: “We work here and live here.”
According to Christine Baik, the daughter of the family-run business Cambridge Beauty Supply, her family’s store was targeted on Tuesday night whereas they found “glass shattered all over the floor.”
As Baik insisted, a mob of looters raided a local pharmacy two times. Some thieves allegedly also fired their guns during their looting spree.
“It is clear many of these folks are in no way honoring the memory of Walter Wallace Jr.,” the city’s mayor, Jim Kenney, said on Wednesday as he condemned the looting.
As the mayor added, thieves were going against the wishes of the family of Walter Wallace Jr. by plundering innocent businesses.
“By looting, people are not only harming many retail businesses that have struggled in the midst of the pandemic, but they are doing a great disservice to the many others who want to exercise their First Amendment rights by protesting,” he added.
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Replaced!