Philadelphia Police Commissioner calls looters criminals: 'Everyone should be angry'
Interim Commissioner John Stanford called the lotters who ravaged stores in Center City, Philadelphia on Tuesday night "criminals."
Billionaire Elon Musk, who also owns X, formerly known as Twitter, described videos and images of people, mostly teenagers, looting stores in Philadelphia as "going full Joker."
The criminal activity came after, but separate from a peaceful protest that started after a judge dismissed murder and other charges against a white Philadelphia police officer who fatally shot a Black resident, Eddie Irizarry.
Those doing the ransacking were not affiliated with the protest, Philadelphia Police Commissioner John Stanford clarified.
Philadelphia police sit outside the Lululemon store Wednesday morning, after a flash mob-style of people ransacked and vandalized downtown stores Tuesday night came. The chaos erupted following a peaceful protest over a judge’s decision to dismiss murder and other charges against a Philadelphia police officer who shot and killed a driver through a rolled-up window. (Alejandro A. Alvarez/The Philadelphia Inquirer via AP)
"These were not protesters, these were criminals," Stanford said. "This is disgusting. It has no place in this city."
Video on social media Tuesday night showed masked people in hoodies running down the street and into several stores where they would fill their arms with merchandise and flee, an action lately described as flash mob-style ransacking. By Wednesday afternoon, police said they made at least 52 arrests, according to the Associated Press.
Several of the videos were posted to X and caught the attention of the social media platform’s top executive.
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Elon Musk, who also owns X, formerly known as Twitter, described videos and images of teenagers looting stores in Philadelphia as "going full Joker." (Patrick Pleul/Pool/Getty Images/File/Fox News)
Musk responded to one video posted to X showing the "City of Brotherly Love" under complete chaos, with police trying to stop looters as they exited a store and a woman laughing uncontrollably.
"America is going full Joker," Musk said, referring to Batman’s most infamous villain, the Joker, portrayed in the 2019 Todd Phillips film, "Joker," starring Joaquin Phoenix.
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In another video, an overly excited woman is heard going crazy as a swarm of people, mostly Black, poured into an Apple store after a security guard trying to hold back the crowd gave way. The looters then ransacked the store, grabbing iPhones, iPads and more, while the woman kept screaming, "Got one! Got one! Got one! Got one...free iPhones! Free iPhones! Free iPhones."
The woman then said security was running, before a man wearing a mask walks over and shows off his loot, which consisted of several electronic devices.
The camera then points to an iPhone in the woman’s hand, and she screams, "They’re tracking us. Burn your iPhones."
A little while later, people are seen throwing the "free iPhones" to the ground, slamming them one at a time as the alarms continued to sound on the stolen merchandise, which appeared to have been disabled.
"So just plain destruction in the end," Musk said in the post comments.
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In another post showing the same incident, the X CEO simply responds, "Wow."
Fox News Digital's Lawrence Richard contributed to this report.
