It turns out the looting situation in San Leandro on Sunday night was even more extensive and egregious than already reported, as we're now learning about a car dealership that lost between 70 and 100 vehicles to looters.
A Walmart store and an adjacent Burlington Coat Factory in San Leandro were broken into, vandalized, looted, and the Walmart was left smoldering into Monday morning in an apocalyptically chaotic scene of civil unrest.
And as KRON4 reports, stores in the Marina Square shopping center, including a Nike clearance warehouse, were also looted that night. And across the street, a large group of looters broke into a Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram dealership and drove off with at least 73 vehicles — in some cases, ramming other vehicles to get them off the lot.
Dealership owner Carlos Hidalgo tells the station that the looters had about five hours in which to pillage the cars, because police were overwhelmed dealing with incidents in other parts of the city — including the looting of the Walmart.
"They drove a car right out of my showroom and fled," he says. He expressed sympathy for protests, saying, "A life cannot be brought back. These cars can be replaced and they’re insured but you know we need to not act or react this way." He added that the looting impacted his employees, who were all just recently back on the job trying to sell cars again.
On Monday, as KPIX reports, Hidalgo initially believed about 50 cars were missing, after looters gained access to the key safe inside the dealership. But that number rose to at least 73 on Tuesday, and employees told the Chronicle the number could be over 100.
We Have To Do Better As People Smh! (This Not My Video)
— Coach Mal💯 (@Coachmal_) June 1, 2020
San Leandro Ca pic.twitter.com/AVhrjuDMai
More than 70 new cars were stolen from the San Leandro Dodge dealership, as looting and destruction hit the city Sunday night.@TaylorBisackyTV reports: https://t.co/ziRZt3i5WA
— KRON4 News (@kron4news) June 2, 2020
Sgt. Ray Kelly, a spokesperson for the Alameda County Sheriff's Office, says there are so many looted cars out on the road that sheriff's deputies have been spotting the dealer plates all over the county.
Stolen vehicles included expensive Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcats, which start at $60,000, as well as trucks, Jeeps, and Chargers.
Hidalgo tells KRON4 that about 20 of the stolen cars have been recovered, and employees have spent the last two days just repairing the vehicles that remained that were damaged in the chaos.