Is there a new wave of responsibility in the government of California taking place that will bring surging crime levels under control and make it safer for businesses to operate in a routine fashion and citizens to walk the streets? The pending recall elections of soft-on-crime District Attorneys and the refunding of some police departments might make you think so. But the crime wave is not receding yet. The latest example comes to us this week from CBS News in Los Angeles where they provide details and video of the latest smash-and-grab mass looting even that netted the criminals roughly one million dollars in jewelry and other goods in a space of minutes. Amazingly, the entire event was once again caught on camera, but the identity of the suspects thus far remains a mystery.

Three suspects ransacked an El Monte jewelry store to the tune of an estimated $1 million and purportedly assaulted employees Tuesday afternoon in a brazen smash-and-grab robbery.

The robbery occurred at 1:15 p.m. at David’s Jewelers, located at 10925 Main St.

Security video showed the masked male suspects entering the store, smashing display cases and stealing jewelry. Employees can be seen throwing chairs at the suspects while they shovel jewelry into bags. The employees then chase the suspects out of the store.

Here’s the security video of the event from a local news report.

The brazen nature of the heist goes without question. But this wasn’t just a case of a mass robbery where everyone stood by helplessly and watched the suspects flee with the goods. Some of the employees actually tried to fight back, flinging chairs at the robbers. Some were rewarded for their efforts by being attacked with hammers.

We’ve spent plenty of time here analyzing the disastrous consequences of California decriminalizing serious crimes in the name of “racial justice” and “emptying the jails.” It’s an entrenched phenomenon at this point. But this robbery went far further. Employees were assaulted with blunt objects. And the value of the goods stolen was far in excess of $950. By any definition, this was a serious, planned felony that endangered people’s lives.

And yet much of California still apparently doesn’t have enough law enforcement resources to respond to and deal with this type of assault in broad daylight in a prompt fashion. Does this resemble the America that most of you above a certain age recall? Even in the early days of the “wild west,” daylight robberies of banks by bands of robbers were considered shocking, though the limited law enforcement resources in that era made them possible.

In the modern era, we grew to expect a level of “normalcy” where such things simply didn’t happen. Or if they did, the police would have the cooperation of the community and the perpetrators would, in most cases, quickly be brought to justice if competent investigators were involved. Now, a story like this doesn’t even merit a mention outside of local new sources. Particularly in California, it happens on nearly a daily basis.

Perhaps the citizens of California and the rest of the nation should be taking a long, hard look in the mirror and asking ourselves why. Is this now “normal” in our world? And if so, is it acceptable? We seem to have far too many people in Washington who either think it is or that we need to turn a blind eye to it. This is a path to destruction and it should not be tolerated.