The Los Angeles Police Department has a message for the denizens of Tinseltown and the rest of the City of Angels. When you go out and about, you should probably avoid wearing any sort of flashy, expensive jewelry or other expensive possessions. Why would they say that? Because thieves have continued to become more and more brazen about pulling a weapon on pedestrians or motorists and robbing them of their belongings. And displays of wealth will just make you more of a target for these types of crimes. At the same time, gangs are also stepping up attacks on jewelry stores and other outlets selling expensive and easily fenced merchandise, so you might want to avoid those stores as well. LA is looking more and more like a scene from Escape from New York these days. (Associated Press)

Los Angeles police are warning people that wearing expensive jewelry in public could make them a target for thieves — a note of caution as robberies are up citywide.

The police department’s suggestion Tuesday came as robbers smashed the front window of a Beverly Hills jewelry store in broad daylight and fled with millions of dollars’ worth of merchandise.

Passersby recorded video of Tuesday’s robbery, the latest in a long string of brazen smash-and-grab thefts and robberies of people wearing expensive watches or jewelry in the Los Angeles region.

This video from local ABC News Channel 7 shows thieves casually smashing the windows of a Beverly Hills jewelry store and making off with between three and five million dollars worth of merchandise. And they did it in broad daylight.

This advice is going to hit the residents of Hollywood particularly hard given the propensity of the glitterati to adorn themselves with stunning displays of wealth. Of course, the really big-name stars almost always have armed security guards accompanying them when they venture out among the unwashed masses, so they don’t need to worry as much. (Those would be the same celebrities who lecture the rest of the country about the evils of gun ownership.) But for the rank-and-file residents who can’t afford such protective measures, not so much.

How warped has the world become when we see the police telling people that it’s not safe to simply walk the sidewalks and go about their normal affairs? The police shouldn’t have to sound these sorts of alarms. They should be putting criminals behind bars. But thanks to California’s legislative efforts such as Proposition 47 (hilariously named the “Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act”), that’s not as easy as it used to be. Literally tens of thousands of felons had their crimes redefined as misdemeanors and were cut loose from the jails early. For many other criminals that the police somehow manage to catch, they will serve little to no jail time for robberies that would have previously seen them doing a lengthy stretch in the Crowbar Motel.

I have no doubt that nearly all of the officers of the LAPD do the best jobs they can and try to keep their communities safe. But when they don’t have the support of woke prosecutors and legislators who seemingly try to thwart their efforts, there’s only so much they can do. And if nobody is willing to reverse those destructive policies, perhaps the police should be offering a different sort of advice to the citizens they are sworn to serve and protect. Move. Pack your stuff and get out of Los Angeles. You’re living in an increasingly lawless wasteland. And if you haven’t been the victim of any of these criminals yet, just stick around a while longer. Your name will come up on their list sooner or later.