Looters raid a gas station store after Lakers' win

After the Lakers' victory Sunday night, fans swarmed into the convenience store at a Shell gas station on Grand Avenue and Olympic Boulevard and started shouting:  “Free soda! Free soda!”

The rowdy crowd of about 20 young men, many wearing Lakers apparel, entered the store about 10:20 p.m. and started grabbing bottles of water, chips, candy, chocolate and six-packs of soda off the shelves, said 27-year-old employee German Bonilla.

They loaded their arms with whatever they could grab and threw other items on the floor. They were gone less than five minutes later, Bonilla said. Bottles were shattered and cans of soda exploded on the floor. Bananas were trampled on, creating a sticky mess. A cashier in the store tried to tell the young men to leave and usher them out the door, but was unsuccessful.

“Everything happened so quick,” said Bonilla, who was working the graveyard shift at a Subway sandwich counter in the gas station. “I was just standing behind the counter. I wasn’t going to do anything because there was so many of them.”

As soon as the crowd left, Bonilla and the cashier closed the store, cleaned up and reopened about 1:30 a.m. Bonilla said he is not a Lakers fan and does not like it when they play at home because fans hungry for Subway sandwiches form a huge line afterward. But in the year he has worked the graveyard shift, he has never seen such a violent disruption as the one he saw Sunday night.

“Every time the Lakers win, it’s like ‘Oh boy,’” he said.

A video of revelers raiding the storewas posted on YouTube.

-- Corina Knoll

Photo: Jose Hernandez cleans the floor of the looted Shell gas station Monday morning. Credit: Al Seib / Los Angeles Times

Comments

[steve rodriguez]

I take it that none of the looters were pre-med students, high school graduates or even employed! What high character young people we have raised in LA!!!!!

[LetsGoMets]

How come Bonilla obviously knew what the LAPD didn't, or wouldn't publicly admit to? Laker/Dodger fans are the scum of the earth, and it's time that the city took a hard stand against this behavior once and for all. It happens EVERY YEAR the Lakers win.

http://letsgomets.vox.com/library/post/nothing-good-ever-comes-of-lakers-or-dodgers-victories-in-los-angeles.html

[Perino]

yeah, let's go and have a parade now after all the rioting....NOT
Again, it only proves that sports like other shallow events don't lend itself to making us look smarter as a human race... with the city out of money, police hurt, and the fu fu mayor threating lay offs, let's get real....NO Parade

[Karen]

And people wonder why I am so adamant about the fact that Orange County is NOT Los Angeles. This is disgusting, shameful behavior. Of course they might not be from LA, but the simple fact that this happened in LA is embarassing. And the poor young guy whose shoe store was robbed of all of his inventory may have been robbed by the same mob.

[Tony]

It's about time the LAPD put an end to these worthless people gathering in the name of celebrating. Normal law abiding people can't partake in these events anyway for fear of their family's wellbeing.

[Cindy]

I am now embarrassed to say I am a Laker Fan! And more embarrassed to see my race "The Hispanic Race" for that fact only out there looting and causing havoc.

[ferenc]

a few shot and killed looters would have been a good result. then of course, la is mostly low life SCUM.

[graciela]

I have seen a lot of pictures, video, and other forms of evidence captured by bystanders. Some people even collected license plates and caught these idiots on video looting and robbing. Is LAPD going to try to ID and catch some of these people, at least to make an example of them? No one feels safe going to these events but if LAPD showed there were consequences, maybe people would stop. RIght now the crazies are winning and they get away with it every time. If New York could arrest people from video evidence at the Puerto Rican Day parade, why can't LAPD?