Back in November, we sounded our horns over reports that thieves in Northeast L.A. were targeting Union Pacific freight trains, stealing packages en route to the people who had ordered them and leaving a massive wake of shredded cardboard and paper in their wake. The news compounded the headaches of corporations and consumers already incurred by widespread global shipping delays.
The situation seemed to worsen still by January when a right-wing personality began filming his adventures around the tracks, COVID tests were taken, and an outcry sounded through local and national media. Then ace reporter Mike Ade dropped the revelation on L.A. TACO that Union Pacific had laid off a number of its own police force before the rash of thefts, interrupting the company's vocal complaints about progressive Los Angeles prosecutor George Gascon being the cause of the robberies.
Now Union Pacific appears to be announcing a victory in thwarting further thefts. Not by rehiring the security it laid off, but by automating their jobs. NBC reports that the thefts "have stopped overnight" and the tracks appear significantly clear of debris, thanks to the implementation of cameras from the GardaWorld-owned ECAM Secure, a four-BILLION dollar surveillance company gleefully replacing human security with robotic eyes.
The cameras were apparently installed last week, though the company would reportedly not admit to the news station that it had a contract with Union Pacific. The streaming video is viewed by actual humans at a command center in Long Beach, with Artificial Intelligence highlighting the movement of other actual humans on the tracks, highlighting suspicious or unauthorized persons and vehicles in restricted areas. At which point, a loudspeaker tells the violator they've been spotted and are being recorded while recommending they get the fuck out of there.
The cameras are said to be working, with crime quickly reduced on the tracks.