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EXCLUSIVE VIDEOS: Police Unable To Handle Philadelphia Looters As Businesses Get Ransacked

Screenshot Twitter Jorge Ventura

Shelby Talcott Senior White House Correspondent
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PHILADELPHIA — Police in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, were unable to handle swarms of looters Tuesday evening as parts of the city devolved into unrest following an officer-related shooting Monday.

Walter Wallace Jr., 27, died Monday after police responded to a report of a man with a weapon. Wallace was shot multiple times after officers told him to drop a knife, according to reports. Protests and riots developed Monday in parts of Philadelphia following the death and continued for a second day Tuesday, journalists for the Caller reported from the ground.

The evening began with a large, peaceful protest in west Philadelphia’s Malcolm X park, just blocks away from where Wallace was shot. Protesters took turns giving speeches as others attended a memorial where the incident occurred, releasing blue and white balloons into the sky at one point.

Speeches turned to marching in the early evening, and west Philadelphia remained tense but largely peaceful, according to reporters on the ground. Bouts of infighting occasionally broke up the peace, and the marching group quickly split into two, with one crowd breaking off to head towards a police precinct. That crowd was soon met by a wall of police officers, and an hours-long standoff would ensue.

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Meanwhile, just over 10 miles away within Philadelphia, mass unrest and looting overwhelmed police officers on a busy shopping street in the Port Richmond neighborhood. Reporters witnessed stores such as Walmart and Dollar Tree being broken into as clumps of police officers watched nearby, unable to adequately respond.

The situation proved dangerous and tense, and an “every-man-for-himself” attitude seemed to ensue as roughly 1,000 people sprinted across parking lots and through broken storefronts.

As looters ran through the aisles of Five Below, several targeted Blaze TV reporter Elijah Schaffer, punching him repeatedly for filming the scene, footage from on the ground shows. Meanwhile, some people ran about, stealing some items and throwing others to the floor.

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Inside the Dollar Tree, a few rioters simply opted for destruction, knocking over displays of mugs and eyeglasses. Police would occasionally speed through the parking lots with sirens on, crunching over the broken glass and flattening goods left behind amid the unrest.

The occasional police presence prompted the swarms of looters to sprint out of the stores en masse, often hopping into vehicles with getaway drivers waiting, engines always running — but the peace would never last long. (RELATED: ‘Looting Is Not A Protest, It Is A Crime’: Joe Biden Issues Statement On Philadelphia Police Shooting)

Several stores were looted again as officers left to respond to other incidents, with the crowd taking advantage of the intermittent police response. One policewoman indicated that they were extremely understaffed to respond to such a mass of people. Many looters were able to go up and down the busy road for hours.

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The mass looting affected multiple businesses on Aramingo Avenue, with cars peeling in and out of strip mall parking lots after filling vehicles with stolen goods. Some people wheeled out entire shopping carts full of items, while others kept it small – one man appeared to opt for two grey pillows, a Caller reporter saw. Another man quickly wheeled a washing machine through one of the parking lots.

As the looting wore on, police began to respond in larger groups, shutting down parts of the street and returning to the storefronts after idling for a time in front of a gas station down the road. Reporters saw few interactions between police and looters, with looters almost always successfully fleeing the scene.

Philadelphia police commanders called the evening on Aramingo Avenue “a total loss,” according to CBS3 reporter Joe Holden. The National Guard, which was reportedly deployed earlier Tuesday in preparation for continuing unrest, was not spotted by reporters on the ground throughout the entire evening.

After looters fled the area for the last time Tuesday, large bouts of destruction would remain on Aramingo Avenue. Broken glass, empty shelves and knocked over goods served as leftovers from the unrest – as alarm systems continued to blare out late into the evening, with cop car lights finally serving as a backdrop.

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As unrest ripped through Port Richmond, Wallace’s children remembered their father during a press conference Tuesday evening near the first protest scene.

“We always go places,” one child said Tuesday, according to Fox News. “He always teach [sic] me how to be a man. And these white racist cops got my own dad. And Black Lives still matter.”

Police would make arrests in west Philadelphia’s protest as the evening wore on, according to Robert Klemko, a reporter for The Washington Post. While the scene remained peaceful earlier in the evening, later hours experienced some “rock and brick throwers,” Klemko reported.