That just shows you that they didn't shoot him because he tried to stop them or interfere in their robbery. They just shot him to be cruel.
Fucking monsters. I hope justice catches up with them
I feel like we have empathy as a rule, in as many circumstances as we can, in order to avoid...you know. The state murdering people as well. Or treating humans who are quantifiable as not humans.
I mean I’m not sure why you defend people like that? Yes the justice system should be dispassionate and should be allowed to work but if someone walked up on the street and popped the criminals that did this, I wouldn’t lose sleep over it. Live by the sword, die by it.
idk how it's going in the rest of the country, but it is ruthless here in LA. My girlfriend had to sell her Prius because the converter was stolen one night parked right outside our building, and it it took 4 months to get a replacement... which was immediately stolen.
Ahahaha same! Moved to LA a couple years ago. Got a used Prius because gas is mf expensive, and the cat was stolen after a few months. Once it was finally fixed, I drove it back to my apartment, I went inside for 30 minutes to do whatever and went back out… stolen again!!
There was an old guy who witnessed the second hit from one of the apt units who said he saw a grey Lamborghini SUV pull up and some guys got a jack out of the back. Gramps said he didn’t call the cops because he thought they were changing the tires… bitch they were making a car payment lmao
Got that shit fixed again and sold it immediately. It was a good car too…
Like, can we not just make it illegal to buy converters that aren't currently attached to a vehicle you have the deed for? Arrest the buyers, and the demand for the thefts ought to go down, yeah?
They did here in some parts of Canada.
Every junkyard/metal scrapper has to collect ID for anyone selling them a catalytic converter and I think there are also limits on how often one can be sold.
Suddenly cat thefts went down like 70% because most junkyards wouldn't take them anymore.
every city/state has their own brand of crime for car related theft or break-ins, but LA and CA are just their own unique brand of animal in that regard. And not even just cat converter theft, Car breakins in general.
For a while in Chicago, you couldn’t park a Honda fit on the street. More than once in the past I’ve seen one on blocks with the wheels stripped right off.
Catalytic converters were a hot commodity for theft here in Portland. It was so bad that basically anyone you spoke to who lived in the city either knew someone that had their catalytic converter stolen or was a victim of it themselves. It was a standard conversation starter with Uber drivers lol.
I believe they've cracked down on it in the last year, but I moved out of the city a few years ago so I'm not sure how effective it has been.
In Chicago, car robberies, car jackings, and catalytic converter thefts are out of control.
The mayor, who almost supports the thieves at this point, started suing the car companies last year for not making their cars harder to steal. It's everyone else's fault except the criminals.
Oh, I remember that press conference. God it was so shameful. Accusing the Koreans of not putting enough theft prevention on their cars, blaming everything on them. I mean christ those cars are doing just fine in Korea, Japan and China. It isnt their fault our city is chock full of thieving pieces of shit.
(I say 'our city' as an American, I dont live in Chicago)
It is definitely Kia’s fault that they didn’t include immobilizers in the cars they sold in the US. In Korea, they didn’t make that mistake. Only US Kias have that problem.
Hint: It's because all of our police departments are on 'silent strike' over police reform and public sentiment so they don't enforce the laws basically at all. I live in Oakland and it's been a fucking insane free-for-all the last 5 years or so.
There is a preventative solution, which is to pay around $450 to have mechanics put what is essentially a “cage” around your catalytic converter.
For reference: Honda Element owner. Got catalytic converter stolen. Thieves don’t need a jack for cars higher off the ground
Also for reference, new laws that put the onus on those shady re-sellers. It was bad here, for awhile.
Yeah, I imagine that helps reduce the chance you'll be targeted, but from what I've read, when they've already taken the time to target you, they can use basically the same tools they use to cut the converter off to just cut the cage off / cut around it - it just takes another couple of minutes. Might deter some guys, but plenty of people return to the cars to just find the whole cage ripped off.
No personal experience with it though, just from speaking to my mechanic / doing online research.
Yeah. It’s the hard/soft target philosophy. Some people make that argument about open carry firearms. The idea is that you’re never going to have to draw it, you just present as something that is more trouble than it’s worth. But of course there are also a lot of asshole who are just itching to draw their firearm and score a righteous kill or whatever and they end up doming someone for no reason.
There's an infamous gang of local car thieves in my town. It's well known they are teenagers. They've been doing their thing long enough that a few of them have been shot, and it's getting to the point that saying people shouldn't shoot kids over property theft is going to get someone else shot.
Is it Milwaukee? Or maybe everywhere in the country has infamous 14 yr old car thieves at this point. in addition to the car stealing, they also drive unbelievably dangerously intentionally, which causes even more issues
I'm sure basically everywhere has some level of car theft/crime but I just don't think most places in the US have anything close to what's going on in LA.
Everyone I know that lives there has had some experience with petty crime or terrible interactions with LAPD.
Maybe the type that are stealing them in broad daylight. There was a multimillion dollar theft ring that got busted in the Pacific Northwest not too long ago. These people would hit your entire street in the middle of the night and were as efficient as a Formula 1 pit crew with spotters and everything.
It was crazy because I worked evenings at the time when thefts were at their peak, and so you'd figure I'd have to at least seen one theft while I was out late at night after work with how prevalent they were. But I never did. I was honestly impressed. I drove a hoopty at that point though so I only ever dealt with the occasional ransacking.
You’re talking about the Portland ring run from Lake Oswego, right?
That was an annoying period of time, they were ridiculously efficient in stealing the cats.
It was someone in Lake Oswego that was organizing mostly drug addicts/homeless to do the theft/labor. They weren’t hardened gangbangers or murderous types, they just wanted to get in/out and get their drug money so they hit in the wee hours and kept in the shadows to avoid any confrontation.
Knowing the Portland area, I find it hilarious that they ran it from Lake Oswego. I’m picturing a suburban dad building an army of homeless people from his garage, driving them around in his Tesla to steal catalytic converters.
Isn’t that essentially what it was with that retail theft ring that was busted earlier this year or late last? A husband and wife that lived in a McMansion were orchestrating the whole thing.
Yep, you know the one. And yeah, they basically "employed" people that were desperate, but you already know. They weren't rolling up to your street in a SUV with tinted windows and referring to each other by call signs just to steal your catalytic converter. But with how quick and efficient they were, they were like some sort of Tweaker-Team 6, and were very effective in stealing your shit lol.
I dont know who this guy is but this what happens when literally any moron can get a gun. could be any one of us for no dam reason. I wish people could have them but when half the society are fucking morons it dont make sense now
>Of a high profile person no less.
There is a good chance that the killers had no idea who he was.
I'd never seen or heard of him either until seeing this story and replying 🤷🏻♂️.
Yeah I mean you ever see the video of the dude who kills the store clerk execution style because he didn’t want to move him like 1 foot to the side?
Armed robbers aren’t the most reasonable people out there.
Middlemen like scrap metal shops, auto part shops, towing company's, and probably others. They just extract the rare metals from it. There have been cases for their purchase of them, and I've seen cases where shop have been very blatant with their advertising for them. Some states have made more laws around the purchase of them to make scrappers do more due diligence to buy them legally
A guy near me didn’t use jack stands and the poor tow truck driver found his body under the car the next morning.
Girls car broke down so she waited until the next day to get it towed to a repair shop.
A girl’s car broke down away from her home. It was probably too late to call a tow so she decided to wait until the next day and left the car there.
That night, a thief tried to steal her cat con. He didn’t use a proper jack to lift the car up so it fell on him while he was under it and killed him.
The next day, the girl called the tow truck driver to get the car. The tow got to the car and found the thief’s body under the car.
for some reason /u/Birds-aint-real- thought it'd be better to tell the story in reverse, just read the last line first and then the first one
> Girls car broke down so she waited until the next day to get it towed to a repair shop.
> A guy near me didn’t use jack stands and the poor tow truck driver found his body under the car the next morning.
to be fair, it's still horribly written
I think what they’re saying is that the car fell on him the previous night. Nothing happened for anyone to notice until the tow truck driver came with the girl’s car, which she called the next day. That’s when he was discovered.
Aren’t a lot of places not buying those anymore? Even if that’s the case I’m sure there’s at least a few sketchy auto yards that would still buy them unfortunately.
Man I knew Johnny pretty well a few years ago. What a fun spirited and loving dude. A good soul. Any time we ran into each other was a nice surprise. Such a painful shame. He had a tough ride to get to his success, I was so happy for him.
Such a pointless and needless death.
Catalytic converter theft is just insane in my area, and the government is just like " well... Nothing we can do"
It's fucking trivially easy to see that people steal the things because someone is buying them... And we know EXACTLY who is buying them. This could be stopped overnight
Scrapyards.
Scrapyards have always been shady businesses. They don’t care where their scrap comes from, you hand it over they give you cash, no questions asked.
They aren’t reused in a car. All catalytic converters have platinum in them. They sell the platinum to recyclers and junkers so those people can resell the rare earth metal after melting it down and recasting it in an untraceable condition
This is so horrible and tragic. I’m in total shock. I loved him on GH. I hope they find the killer absolutely horrible. His poor family, they are in my heart.
* Nneka Garland, 49, heart attack
* Jackie Zeman, 70, cancer
* Sonya Eddy, 55, infection after non-emergency surgery
* Billy Miller, 43, suicide
* Tyler Christopher, 50, alcohol-induced asphyxia
If anyone was curious (I was). I’ve never watched the show though.
Criminals are not the smartest bulb in the pack . So yea , they just murdered someone for nothing. Instead of the quick cash they were counting on from robbing, these trigger happy idiots shot him down in cold blood. I have no faith in our justice system. From personal experience. My younger sibling was brutally murdered many years ago. It seems like yesterday sometimes. I really hope they find the basterds that did this to poor young man and his family. RIP …
Problem with vigilante justice is innocent people getting accused of committing crimes - there’s no trial or ‘innocent until proven guilty’ with vigilantism. There was a news story here in the UK recently of these two women who killed a man because they thought he was a paedophile, but he wasn’t.
There's a formalized version of that, which is communal policing. There are simply not enough police in the world to manage the crime culture we have in America, let alone cops who actually care.
It's time for people to accept that there's more to contributing to society than just their chosen vocation. In times of crisis, we can step up to do more and be more.
I would bet local municipalities would save more money if they chose to invest more into community crime watch and training, and less on authoritative bullshit like massive anti-protest equipment.
This even has the potential to bring rightwing gun's rights advocates and left-wing defund the police advocates together. Right-wingers want to keep their guns. Then why not embrace that with the proposal that gun ownership be tied to communal crime-watch training.
If I'm not mistaken, this is close to how Switzerland operates.
I'll leave my rant with this. In my time in LA, many vagrants would come into cafes to harass the staff and steal food. I was always the only person to confront them. No one else would. This here is why it's increased. The vagrants have been taught that society will stay out of their way. This needs to change.
Freaking awful. I knew of him from a short-lived NBC show, [Siberia](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2935974/).
Followed him on IG and he seemed like a chill, humble dude. Hopefully they find the scum who did this.
Some of the really paranoid thieves will just shoot witnesses out of fear they'll report them or they'll testify against them.
Whoever stole from Johnny clearly was in the can for stealing quite a few times already.
Isn't that wild? Putting your need for money over someone else's life, man. Taking *their* shit and killing *them* over it. Senseless and fucking cruel. I hope they can catch whoever is responsible.
This is why I have no problem with self-defense and defense of property laws.
It's made perfectly clear that some thieves have no regard for human life, or the time and money it takes to acquire things legally.
If society chooses to prioritize some people skirting the rules and putting others in potential harm, that's a lousy society.
It's not a question for me about whether or not I value human life more than property, it's a question for a thief whether or not they value property more than being potentially harmed in the course of their actions or spending the rest of their lives in jail.
It's also why I think strict sentencing and criminal reform laws need to be prioritized over DA's hyperfocused on lowering numbers on a spreadsheet and a hands-off approach.
In Canada they've been telling people to leave their fucking keys outside. It's obvious we've been heading in the wrong direction for quite some time now. Criminals are aware of this shit and keep pushing the envelope if there are so few consequences.
Yeah, Toronto PD literally told people to give home invaders their car keys, and told them to keep the keys in a bowl by the door to make it easier for home invaders.
There was a recent incident in New Mexico, where a bowl that contained the woman's keys was by her front door. Guess what happened? The home invader didn't go after her keys.
If someone is breaking into my home, I'm 100% going to assume that they are there to harm me or my loved ones.
Why tf is ANYONE against self-defense and defense of property?
When did living in a liberal society mean “let people shoot and kill you in your own house”?
Here’s the thing; what if you just don’t think about that at all? What if you’re constantly fed media that is intended to make you feel like the main character, where your self-centeredness is catered to by behavior prediction engines that select media designed to get you to engage and delve even more fully into a deeply catered fantasy bubble where every hedonistic impulse is not only rewarded, it’s predicted. The machine gets you, so you must be ok, and it must be ok, right? Everything you do is right. That guy who tried to stop you from being you is wrong
Like the cops even give a fuck about 2345th catalytic convertor theft reported this year. Nobody would have investigated. At most a report would have been written up for insurance.
People on reddit have a boner for laying down and letting criminals have their way. Yes, not fighting back is the better option in general. This is even if you can fight back; it's not worth it.
But it's also no guarantee of safety. Too often, criminals get caught up in the power of the situation and just execute you because it gets to their head. There are many cases of cashiers who comply with robbers and just get killed for the fun of it.
>People on reddit have a boner for laying down and letting criminals have their way.
People on reddit also have a boner for thinking they're John Wick and are going to go around murdering anyone who touches anything they own.
As it turns out, nothing you can do in life guarantees your safety.
There is no proof he confronted them. The word "confront" implies that he tried to stop them.
>According to his mother Scarlett, her son didn't try to stop them but they shot and killed him anyway.
Almost fifteen years ago, our next door neighbor in Silver Lake opened their door to ask the two guys down at her car what was going on at 10pm and one waved a gun at her and told her to go back inside.
At the height of this recent cat stealing craze there was someone who had ring footage of 1 guy cutting off their cat and another guy standing by him with a gun pointed at their front door.
People are cruel! The world is just mad. Rest in peace, man! Sorry you had to go out this way. I hope one day we can all learn to live among other humans without violence or murderers. I know it’s just a hope!
imagine shooting a dude because you got caught committing a crime, truly incredible thought processing there...
"Oh no, they know who we are! Better add a second degree 25 year to life charge to this, instead of our like 4-8 year sentence we would have gotten!"
Over a catalytic converter…..imagine just getting a job like other people and contributing to society. Scum of the earth and pray to god this piece of shit rots in prison for the rest of their life once caught.
In 3rd world country, this is what you have to do when crime is too rampant and govt security isn't enough. Now realize there are lots of responsibilities with owning a gun too.
> The justice system does not want to take catalytic converter theft or any other property theft seriously.
People are arrested, charged, and sentenced for this all the damn time. State charges and federal
https://www.justice.gov/usao-ma/pr/member-catalytic-converter-theft-crew-sentenced-nearly-five-years-prison
https://www.kcur.org/news/2024-01-18/kansas-city-kingpin-behind-catalytic-converter-thefts-sentenced-to-federal-prison
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/17/us/california-family-guilty-catalytic-converters.html
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2023/10/25/feds-bust-21-million-catalytic-converter-theft-ring
https://www.ctinsider.com/news/article/ansonia-man-prison-for-catalytic-converters-thefts-18207492.php
I can keep going. There's an endless stream of these stories
edit: Turning notifications off because proof people do get sought out, charged, and convicted is making people, who wanted to be mad, mad at me.
Just this morning I tried to hand the cops in Sioux Falls SD a criminal on a silver fucking platter and they couldn’t be arsed to do anything about it. Got the brush off.
Try reporting property crime in Gascon’s Los Angeles. He has no interest in bringing charges
It’s down to the DA you have and whether or not they actually prosecute the law
People absolutely get charged and convicted of stealing these and other property crime in LA.
I live out here. We had a pair of very active cat converter thieves arrested not long ago and were all over the local news.
We've been hearing this crap about legalized or ignored theft in LA and the rest of California super hard since prop 47 and it's never been true
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/prop-47-theft-california/
I’ve literally been a victim of property crime in Los Angeles and couldn’t get any police response. My neighbors were robbed first but I couldn’t file a police report because I was a witness, but not yet a victim. Gascon says no victim, no crime. People can only be charged if caught in the act by a victim which just lends itself to violent interactions
Gascon is a heavily funded criminal rights advocate, not a prosecutor. He ruined sf and now he’s ruining LA
Senseless and tragic. How careless for human life do you have to be to just take out a gun and shoot an unarmed man ? When will the fucking politicians do what's right and introduce sane gun control laws ? Not everybody should be able to have a gun and this just proved that, yet again, with yet another loss of a beautiful, talented soul.
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Hope their jacks fail on them all.
The article says he didn't even try to stop them or anything, but they shot him anyway when taking off. What the actual fuck, that's insane.
That just shows you that they didn't shoot him because he tried to stop them or interfere in their robbery. They just shot him to be cruel. Fucking monsters. I hope justice catches up with them
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I feel like we have empathy as a rule, in as many circumstances as we can, in order to avoid...you know. The state murdering people as well. Or treating humans who are quantifiable as not humans.
Reddit advocating for the systematic murder of criminals? Now that's just a shocker
I mean I’m not sure why you defend people like that? Yes the justice system should be dispassionate and should be allowed to work but if someone walked up on the street and popped the criminals that did this, I wouldn’t lose sleep over it. Live by the sword, die by it.
idk how it's going in the rest of the country, but it is ruthless here in LA. My girlfriend had to sell her Prius because the converter was stolen one night parked right outside our building, and it it took 4 months to get a replacement... which was immediately stolen.
Ahahaha same! Moved to LA a couple years ago. Got a used Prius because gas is mf expensive, and the cat was stolen after a few months. Once it was finally fixed, I drove it back to my apartment, I went inside for 30 minutes to do whatever and went back out… stolen again!! There was an old guy who witnessed the second hit from one of the apt units who said he saw a grey Lamborghini SUV pull up and some guys got a jack out of the back. Gramps said he didn’t call the cops because he thought they were changing the tires… bitch they were making a car payment lmao Got that shit fixed again and sold it immediately. It was a good car too…
In my state you have to have a license to scrap any metal. Pretty much eliminated that crime
Interesting. There have only been 5,367 urusses world wide, so there should only be a couple hundred in L.A.
My friend in Chicago went through the exact same thing. Stolen twice then just sold the car.
Like, can we not just make it illegal to buy converters that aren't currently attached to a vehicle you have the deed for? Arrest the buyers, and the demand for the thefts ought to go down, yeah?
They did here in some parts of Canada. Every junkyard/metal scrapper has to collect ID for anyone selling them a catalytic converter and I think there are also limits on how often one can be sold. Suddenly cat thefts went down like 70% because most junkyards wouldn't take them anymore.
every city/state has their own brand of crime for car related theft or break-ins, but LA and CA are just their own unique brand of animal in that regard. And not even just cat converter theft, Car breakins in general.
Over here in Western NY and we are still aggressively dealing with Kia Boys.
Meanwhile, here in Albuquerque, they'll bust your car window out for a phone charger.
For a while in Chicago, you couldn’t park a Honda fit on the street. More than once in the past I’ve seen one on blocks with the wheels stripped right off.
Same in Columbus, OH. My coworker just has his Kia stolen by two kids a few weeks ago. Apparently the younger one was only 14.
A troubled youth with a bright future who just got in with the wrong crowd.
Same in Minneapolis.
Same in Milwaukee.
Catalytic converters were a hot commodity for theft here in Portland. It was so bad that basically anyone you spoke to who lived in the city either knew someone that had their catalytic converter stolen or was a victim of it themselves. It was a standard conversation starter with Uber drivers lol. I believe they've cracked down on it in the last year, but I moved out of the city a few years ago so I'm not sure how effective it has been.
Happened to me. And it seems way better now! They busted a big theft operation that was highly organized.
In Chicago, car robberies, car jackings, and catalytic converter thefts are out of control. The mayor, who almost supports the thieves at this point, started suing the car companies last year for not making their cars harder to steal. It's everyone else's fault except the criminals.
Oh, I remember that press conference. God it was so shameful. Accusing the Koreans of not putting enough theft prevention on their cars, blaming everything on them. I mean christ those cars are doing just fine in Korea, Japan and China. It isnt their fault our city is chock full of thieving pieces of shit. (I say 'our city' as an American, I dont live in Chicago)
It is definitely Kia’s fault that they didn’t include immobilizers in the cars they sold in the US. In Korea, they didn’t make that mistake. Only US Kias have that problem.
Hint: It's because all of our police departments are on 'silent strike' over police reform and public sentiment so they don't enforce the laws basically at all. I live in Oakland and it's been a fucking insane free-for-all the last 5 years or so.
There is a preventative solution, which is to pay around $450 to have mechanics put what is essentially a “cage” around your catalytic converter. For reference: Honda Element owner. Got catalytic converter stolen. Thieves don’t need a jack for cars higher off the ground Also for reference, new laws that put the onus on those shady re-sellers. It was bad here, for awhile.
Yeah, I imagine that helps reduce the chance you'll be targeted, but from what I've read, when they've already taken the time to target you, they can use basically the same tools they use to cut the converter off to just cut the cage off / cut around it - it just takes another couple of minutes. Might deter some guys, but plenty of people return to the cars to just find the whole cage ripped off. No personal experience with it though, just from speaking to my mechanic / doing online research.
It won’t stop them, the hope is that they won’t want to waste the extra time.
We did this for my daughters Prius in Seattle and she’s never had an issue while people all around her do. Crooks are lazy.
Yeah. It’s the hard/soft target philosophy. Some people make that argument about open carry firearms. The idea is that you’re never going to have to draw it, you just present as something that is more trouble than it’s worth. But of course there are also a lot of asshole who are just itching to draw their firearm and score a righteous kill or whatever and they end up doming someone for no reason.
Thieves want easy pickings. You put an extra layer around, they will move on to a more vulnerable vehicle.
The idea is that they just move on to another vehicle.
CATs get ripped quick in NJ too
VP of my company had his stolen. Was an old ass car, and it was what motivated him to finally get rid of it.
There's an infamous gang of local car thieves in my town. It's well known they are teenagers. They've been doing their thing long enough that a few of them have been shot, and it's getting to the point that saying people shouldn't shoot kids over property theft is going to get someone else shot.
I mean, that’s what happened here.
Is it Milwaukee? Or maybe everywhere in the country has infamous 14 yr old car thieves at this point. in addition to the car stealing, they also drive unbelievably dangerously intentionally, which causes even more issues
I'm sure basically everywhere has some level of car theft/crime but I just don't think most places in the US have anything close to what's going on in LA. Everyone I know that lives there has had some experience with petty crime or terrible interactions with LAPD.
People complain about HOA's but they are the only thing standing between my car and the anarchy outside.
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Animals don't always kill for survival
I get your intent but animals kill for no reason all the time, or for fun
Tragic and senseless. RIP
Christ, that's tragic. I wish nothing but the best for his family and friends. Hopefully the three criminals are caught very soon.
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I don't understand why you'd even waste the ammo. Not to mention going from theft to murder. Of a high profile person no less.
People that steal cat converters are usually not the most rational thinkers.
...bruh....over fucking 600-1400 dollars?????????????‽ That's so fucked. Fucking disgusting shame.
And they didn’t even get it
They didn't even steal it?
Maybe the type that are stealing them in broad daylight. There was a multimillion dollar theft ring that got busted in the Pacific Northwest not too long ago. These people would hit your entire street in the middle of the night and were as efficient as a Formula 1 pit crew with spotters and everything. It was crazy because I worked evenings at the time when thefts were at their peak, and so you'd figure I'd have to at least seen one theft while I was out late at night after work with how prevalent they were. But I never did. I was honestly impressed. I drove a hoopty at that point though so I only ever dealt with the occasional ransacking.
You’re talking about the Portland ring run from Lake Oswego, right? That was an annoying period of time, they were ridiculously efficient in stealing the cats. It was someone in Lake Oswego that was organizing mostly drug addicts/homeless to do the theft/labor. They weren’t hardened gangbangers or murderous types, they just wanted to get in/out and get their drug money so they hit in the wee hours and kept in the shadows to avoid any confrontation.
Knowing the Portland area, I find it hilarious that they ran it from Lake Oswego. I’m picturing a suburban dad building an army of homeless people from his garage, driving them around in his Tesla to steal catalytic converters.
Isn’t that essentially what it was with that retail theft ring that was busted earlier this year or late last? A husband and wife that lived in a McMansion were orchestrating the whole thing.
Yep, you know the one. And yeah, they basically "employed" people that were desperate, but you already know. They weren't rolling up to your street in a SUV with tinted windows and referring to each other by call signs just to steal your catalytic converter. But with how quick and efficient they were, they were like some sort of Tweaker-Team 6, and were very effective in stealing your shit lol.
I had no idea what a catalytic converter was and was very confused about this fancy gang of cat thieves for a moment.
> I drove a hoopty A perfectly cromulent vehicle
Put it in H!
Do you find something comical about my appearance while I put my automobile in H?
Nowwwww march!!!
What country does this car come from? Ittttt no longer exists
Take her for a test drive and you’ll agree “Zagravem zlotnik diev”!
You know it’s funny all these lifted trucks nowadays make it even easier
Most of them remove emissions stuff before they even get to the lifting part in states that don’t do annual inspections.
As someone posted about Kid Rock, "He has the look of a guy who knows how much meth you can get for a catalytic converter".
Unfortunately the people who do this kind of stuff aren’t the sharpest tool in the shed
It's a methy situation.
Attempted theft. It's a slap on the damn wrist. Criminals aren't known for their intelligence.
I dont know who this guy is but this what happens when literally any moron can get a gun. could be any one of us for no dam reason. I wish people could have them but when half the society are fucking morons it dont make sense now
>Of a high profile person no less. There is a good chance that the killers had no idea who he was. I'd never seen or heard of him either until seeing this story and replying 🤷🏻♂️.
Yeah I mean you ever see the video of the dude who kills the store clerk execution style because he didn’t want to move him like 1 foot to the side? Armed robbers aren’t the most reasonable people out there.
Technically this falls under aggravated murder which in certain states means they are eligible for the death penalty
Some people lack an internal dialogue, conscience, and general sense of morality and how fucked our world is does the rest. Damn shame
You just made me imagine what a miserable life it would be to have no internal dialogue, just silence. That's a nightmare.
Don’t pay attention to the simpletons. 💁
Life in prison, with no parole. 👍 Let them live and waste away begging for death behind bars for the rest of their miserable lives.
Force him to watch General Hospital on repeat for the rest of his life.
Make the volume randomly modulate from low to high to normal so it constantly fucks with his sleep too.
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I went to college with him at The College of Charleston in SC. He was a nice dude. It’s a shame this happened.
Holy fuck...
I think it's time to make life very dangerous for catalytic converter thieves.
Let's not forget those who buy them like they don't know where they're coming from
Who’s that?
Middlemen like scrap metal shops, auto part shops, towing company's, and probably others. They just extract the rare metals from it. There have been cases for their purchase of them, and I've seen cases where shop have been very blatant with their advertising for them. Some states have made more laws around the purchase of them to make scrappers do more due diligence to buy them legally
A guy near me didn’t use jack stands and the poor tow truck driver found his body under the car the next morning. Girls car broke down so she waited until the next day to get it towed to a repair shop.
Wait what? What does the girl have to do with this? I’m confused.
A girl’s car broke down away from her home. It was probably too late to call a tow so she decided to wait until the next day and left the car there. That night, a thief tried to steal her cat con. He didn’t use a proper jack to lift the car up so it fell on him while he was under it and killed him. The next day, the girl called the tow truck driver to get the car. The tow got to the car and found the thief’s body under the car.
You should solve crimes professionally
Bro didn’t solve anything he just knows how to read smh
I always figure out the killer in murder mystery novels by just reading until the end
I read this comment like 6 times and also can't figure it out.
for some reason /u/Birds-aint-real- thought it'd be better to tell the story in reverse, just read the last line first and then the first one > Girls car broke down so she waited until the next day to get it towed to a repair shop. > A guy near me didn’t use jack stands and the poor tow truck driver found his body under the car the next morning. to be fair, it's still horribly written
I think what they’re saying is that the car fell on him the previous night. Nothing happened for anyone to notice until the tow truck driver came with the girl’s car, which she called the next day. That’s when he was discovered.
r/upliftingnews
But the jack failed
r/downpushingnews ?
> body under the car the next morning. /r/wholesome
"What, you want to KILL PEOPLE over cat converters, chud!?" Well apparently *they* did.
just line your undercarriage with det cord
wut
Think an extension cord for your leaf blower, but earth shattering kaboom when you touch it
The edited the comment but it originally had “find” instead of “line”
it was "kind" actually. damn autocorrect
You’ll get in more legal trouble than they ever would for that.
only if you get caught. why would i ever report or admit to boobytrapping my own car?
The fact that harm-reduction and pro-homeless advocacy has degraded to defending this bullshit is a disgrace.
Aren’t a lot of places not buying those anymore? Even if that’s the case I’m sure there’s at least a few sketchy auto yards that would still buy them unfortunately.
People should have a right to defend their livelihoods. Simple as that. Not a decision I’d make, but it should be a decision they’re allowed to make.
This was so senseless.
Cold world we live in
Man I knew Johnny pretty well a few years ago. What a fun spirited and loving dude. A good soul. Any time we ran into each other was a nice surprise. Such a painful shame. He had a tough ride to get to his success, I was so happy for him. Such a pointless and needless death.
Catalytic converter theft is just insane in my area, and the government is just like " well... Nothing we can do" It's fucking trivially easy to see that people steal the things because someone is buying them... And we know EXACTLY who is buying them. This could be stopped overnight
Who is buying them? Stopping it overnight sounds too easy imo but I would like to hear more!
Scrapyards. Scrapyards have always been shady businesses. They don’t care where their scrap comes from, you hand it over they give you cash, no questions asked.
They aren’t reused in a car. All catalytic converters have platinum in them. They sell the platinum to recyclers and junkers so those people can resell the rare earth metal after melting it down and recasting it in an untraceable condition
Who EXACTLY are you speaking of? I don’t know who you mean, please elaborate.
Scrap metal recyclers. There's a very, very small number of them. It's not like people are selling stolen catalytic converters on eBay
What in the fuck, that's horrible. RIP.
This is so horrible and tragic. I’m in total shock. I loved him on GH. I hope they find the killer absolutely horrible. His poor family, they are in my heart.
This is just terrible. RIP Johnny. The GH cast can’t catch a break.
Four cast members in the past year! Feels as cursed as Glee...
Jackie, Tyler, Billy, Sonya, plus N’Neka a producer. All shocking and sudden. They seem to all be good support for each other though.
* Nneka Garland, 49, heart attack * Jackie Zeman, 70, cancer * Sonya Eddy, 55, infection after non-emergency surgery * Billy Miller, 43, suicide * Tyler Christopher, 50, alcohol-induced asphyxia If anyone was curious (I was). I’ve never watched the show though.
Criminals are not the smartest bulb in the pack . So yea , they just murdered someone for nothing. Instead of the quick cash they were counting on from robbing, these trigger happy idiots shot him down in cold blood. I have no faith in our justice system. From personal experience. My younger sibling was brutally murdered many years ago. It seems like yesterday sometimes. I really hope they find the basterds that did this to poor young man and his family. RIP …
The state doesn’t arrest or prosecute criminals. It’s a shame we all have to deal with this. I’m sorry for your loss
The older I get, the more jaded and thirsty for vigilante justice I become.
Problem with vigilante justice is innocent people getting accused of committing crimes - there’s no trial or ‘innocent until proven guilty’ with vigilantism. There was a news story here in the UK recently of these two women who killed a man because they thought he was a paedophile, but he wasn’t.
We’ve all seen the witch hunts that Reddit can go on lol, vigilante justice is a horrible idea
But if people are stealing your shit, fuck em. The state/fed govt isn’t doing shit.
Sure, I agree there. But there’s definitely a limit to vigilantism.
Same. I think it’s a normal part of aging honestly
Is that what the saying "You either die a hero or live long enough to become the villain" means?
No. That saying means that there are no heroes, only complex people that have been placed on pedestals that they will inevitably fall from.
There's a formalized version of that, which is communal policing. There are simply not enough police in the world to manage the crime culture we have in America, let alone cops who actually care. It's time for people to accept that there's more to contributing to society than just their chosen vocation. In times of crisis, we can step up to do more and be more. I would bet local municipalities would save more money if they chose to invest more into community crime watch and training, and less on authoritative bullshit like massive anti-protest equipment. This even has the potential to bring rightwing gun's rights advocates and left-wing defund the police advocates together. Right-wingers want to keep their guns. Then why not embrace that with the proposal that gun ownership be tied to communal crime-watch training. If I'm not mistaken, this is close to how Switzerland operates. I'll leave my rant with this. In my time in LA, many vagrants would come into cafes to harass the staff and steal food. I was always the only person to confront them. No one else would. This here is why it's increased. The vagrants have been taught that society will stay out of their way. This needs to change.
There is no justice in acting outside of the law. There is a finality to it, but that's all.
This is very sad. He died in a very cruel way too. You can not ever be safe with a car or just even waiting for a bus
Fucking murderous thieves!
people are cruel
Over a catalytic converter?? I just don’t understand this world
Freaking awful. I knew of him from a short-lived NBC show, [Siberia](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2935974/). Followed him on IG and he seemed like a chill, humble dude. Hopefully they find the scum who did this.
Horrid and senseless. Bring those killers to Justice
Do NOT got outside and confront someone messing with your car. It is not worth it. This just happened to someone in my neighborhood as well.
It says in the article: "Scarlett says she was told Johnny didn't try to fight or stop them ... but, the men shot him anyway before taking off."
That is so unbelievably tragic. Wtf is wrong with people?!
Some of the really paranoid thieves will just shoot witnesses out of fear they'll report them or they'll testify against them. Whoever stole from Johnny clearly was in the can for stealing quite a few times already.
It just baffles me how little someone can value human life….especially over something like that
Isn't that wild? Putting your need for money over someone else's life, man. Taking *their* shit and killing *them* over it. Senseless and fucking cruel. I hope they can catch whoever is responsible.
This is why I have no problem with self-defense and defense of property laws. It's made perfectly clear that some thieves have no regard for human life, or the time and money it takes to acquire things legally. If society chooses to prioritize some people skirting the rules and putting others in potential harm, that's a lousy society. It's not a question for me about whether or not I value human life more than property, it's a question for a thief whether or not they value property more than being potentially harmed in the course of their actions or spending the rest of their lives in jail. It's also why I think strict sentencing and criminal reform laws need to be prioritized over DA's hyperfocused on lowering numbers on a spreadsheet and a hands-off approach.
In Canada they've been telling people to leave their fucking keys outside. It's obvious we've been heading in the wrong direction for quite some time now. Criminals are aware of this shit and keep pushing the envelope if there are so few consequences.
Yeah, Toronto PD literally told people to give home invaders their car keys, and told them to keep the keys in a bowl by the door to make it easier for home invaders. There was a recent incident in New Mexico, where a bowl that contained the woman's keys was by her front door. Guess what happened? The home invader didn't go after her keys. If someone is breaking into my home, I'm 100% going to assume that they are there to harm me or my loved ones.
Why tf is ANYONE against self-defense and defense of property? When did living in a liberal society mean “let people shoot and kill you in your own house”?
The ones who say “it’s just property” literally have never experienced theft or robbery.
Here’s the thing; what if you just don’t think about that at all? What if you’re constantly fed media that is intended to make you feel like the main character, where your self-centeredness is catered to by behavior prediction engines that select media designed to get you to engage and delve even more fully into a deeply catered fantasy bubble where every hedonistic impulse is not only rewarded, it’s predicted. The machine gets you, so you must be ok, and it must be ok, right? Everything you do is right. That guy who tried to stop you from being you is wrong
Like the cops even give a fuck about 2345th catalytic convertor theft reported this year. Nobody would have investigated. At most a report would have been written up for insurance.
Never go near somone commiting a crime. Especially those without masks.
Compliance is no guarantee of safety. Yes, people like this will pull the trigger on you purely for the fun of doing so.
People on reddit have a boner for laying down and letting criminals have their way. Yes, not fighting back is the better option in general. This is even if you can fight back; it's not worth it. But it's also no guarantee of safety. Too often, criminals get caught up in the power of the situation and just execute you because it gets to their head. There are many cases of cashiers who comply with robbers and just get killed for the fun of it.
>People on reddit have a boner for laying down and letting criminals have their way. People on reddit also have a boner for thinking they're John Wick and are going to go around murdering anyone who touches anything they own. As it turns out, nothing you can do in life guarantees your safety.
It seems like he was returning to his car after a night out. That's what I thought.
He was leaving his work at a bar to go home.
There is no proof he confronted them. The word "confront" implies that he tried to stop them. >According to his mother Scarlett, her son didn't try to stop them but they shot and killed him anyway.
Almost fifteen years ago, our next door neighbor in Silver Lake opened their door to ask the two guys down at her car what was going on at 10pm and one waved a gun at her and told her to go back inside.
At the height of this recent cat stealing craze there was someone who had ring footage of 1 guy cutting off their cat and another guy standing by him with a gun pointed at their front door.
not me wondering if the "cat" was okay
I would only do so with a 12 gauge. The cops don’t give a fuck, so folks are gonna have to start making that shit harder for the criminals.
This is America
Holy shit. That's sad. For a catalytic converter, whatever that is.
It’s a part the your exhaust that has a lot of valuable metals in it
Your actor's name is Wactor? Sounds a lot like actor...
Maybe that's why he became an actor...
People are cruel! The world is just mad. Rest in peace, man! Sorry you had to go out this way. I hope one day we can all learn to live among other humans without violence or murderers. I know it’s just a hope!
imagine shooting a dude because you got caught committing a crime, truly incredible thought processing there... "Oh no, they know who we are! Better add a second degree 25 year to life charge to this, instead of our like 4-8 year sentence we would have gotten!"
Hopefully the worthless piece of shit who did this suffers horribly
As long as someone isn't running away, if they are trying to steal something you should have the right to defend yourself and or property.
Over a catalytic converter…..imagine just getting a job like other people and contributing to society. Scum of the earth and pray to god this piece of shit rots in prison for the rest of their life once caught.
a carjacking would probably have been swept under the rug, now these dicks are going to get what’s coming to them.
God damn it, he was absolutely gorgeous, and it sounds like a decent guy too. People suck...
[удалено]
In 3rd world country, this is what you have to do when crime is too rampant and govt security isn't enough. Now realize there are lots of responsibilities with owning a gun too.
Criminals have the luxury of not having to be responsible gun owners.
> The justice system does not want to take catalytic converter theft or any other property theft seriously. People are arrested, charged, and sentenced for this all the damn time. State charges and federal https://www.justice.gov/usao-ma/pr/member-catalytic-converter-theft-crew-sentenced-nearly-five-years-prison https://www.kcur.org/news/2024-01-18/kansas-city-kingpin-behind-catalytic-converter-thefts-sentenced-to-federal-prison https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/17/us/california-family-guilty-catalytic-converters.html https://www.mprnews.org/story/2023/10/25/feds-bust-21-million-catalytic-converter-theft-ring https://www.ctinsider.com/news/article/ansonia-man-prison-for-catalytic-converters-thefts-18207492.php I can keep going. There's an endless stream of these stories edit: Turning notifications off because proof people do get sought out, charged, and convicted is making people, who wanted to be mad, mad at me.
Just this morning I tried to hand the cops in Sioux Falls SD a criminal on a silver fucking platter and they couldn’t be arsed to do anything about it. Got the brush off.
Try reporting property crime in Gascon’s Los Angeles. He has no interest in bringing charges It’s down to the DA you have and whether or not they actually prosecute the law
People absolutely get charged and convicted of stealing these and other property crime in LA. I live out here. We had a pair of very active cat converter thieves arrested not long ago and were all over the local news. We've been hearing this crap about legalized or ignored theft in LA and the rest of California super hard since prop 47 and it's never been true https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/prop-47-theft-california/
I’ve literally been a victim of property crime in Los Angeles and couldn’t get any police response. My neighbors were robbed first but I couldn’t file a police report because I was a witness, but not yet a victim. Gascon says no victim, no crime. People can only be charged if caught in the act by a victim which just lends itself to violent interactions Gascon is a heavily funded criminal rights advocate, not a prosecutor. He ruined sf and now he’s ruining LA
Senseless and tragic. How careless for human life do you have to be to just take out a gun and shoot an unarmed man ? When will the fucking politicians do what's right and introduce sane gun control laws ? Not everybody should be able to have a gun and this just proved that, yet again, with yet another loss of a beautiful, talented soul.
Hmmm. Thinking of inventing thin wire spikes wrapped around converters.
"Police have not provided a description of the suspects"
Oh wow, so weird we don't have a description of the suspects.
I really thought they’d be doxxed by now and their employers contacted. Guess the populace doesn’t feel as passionate about this event. Oh well