Media reports of the looting going on here in the Bay Area are conflating that looting with the ongoing legal, peaceful protests. But we must make it clear that there are two separate categories of activity taking place: legal, Constitutionally-protected political speech and opportunistic criminal activity undertaken by people who are using the protests as a cover for their thievery.
The criminal activity that occurred here in Oakland and Emeryville on Saturday night can easily be isolated from the protests that occurred in downtown Oakland.
This image shows the overall area.
Google maps view of Oakland, Berkeley, and Emeryville.
You can see that it’s 2 miles from downtown Oakland over to Emeryville. You can also see that the affected Emeryville area is a shopping center located away from any centers of protest. Emeryville is a small city of only 12,000 people tucked between Oakland and Berkeley. It’s mostly industrial and commercial businesses in large warehouse-type structures. There are no federal courthouses or government centers that would be singled out for protests.
The criminals who looted the stores in Emeryville were not protesters spilling over from the legal, peaceful protests. To get to those looted stores, you have to drive to get there. You can see in the videos that are all over the Internet that people are loading goods into their cars out in front of the stores.
But the reality of those stores’ locations shows that they’re remote from any protest locations. Journalists and other reporters should be conscientious about clarifying that separation.
The looting of the Best Buy store in Emeryville has been shown in many video reports of the looting, including here: www.kron4.com/...
When you see the Best Buy store from above, you can see that it’s surrounded by parking lots and that the people looting the store would have had to drive their cars up to the store to load them with looted goods.
A video frame captured from local a local newscast shows the setting of the Emeryville Best Buy store, surrounded by parking lots.
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The looting of the Emeryville Ross store was also featured in news reports around the country, including at 2:00 into this video report: sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/...
This Google Maps aerial view of that same Ross store shows that the store is located in a large shopping center that is not close to any neighborhoods or any areas of protest.
A Google Maps aerial view of the Emeryville Ross store shows it in its shopping center setting.
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At 1:15 of this video report, you can see looting of the Emeryville Guitar Center: www.kron4.com/...
Here’s a Google Maps aerial of that same Guitar Center store that was looted on Saturday night. Notice that it’s completely surrounded by parking lots and other commercial buildings.
The Emeryville Guitar Center is remote from any protest locations.
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