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LA Democrat's shocking solution to spike in car thefts - as cops hunt thieves who killed General Hospital star for catalytic-converter
A Los Angeles council member has been filmed blaming Toyota for the increasing catalytic-converter theft ravaging the city - while opposing a motion to hold criminals accountable.
Nithya Raman, who has been a member of the City Council since 2020, blamed Toyota, accusing the company of making their cars so 'easy to steal'.
The video, which was filmed in 2023, has attracted widespread criticism as residents accuse LA Democrats of neglecting to target thieves as car theft continues to surge.
The video comes as actor and General Hospital star, Johnny Wactor, was shot and killed on Saturday when he interrupted thieves breaking into his car attempting to steal a catalytic converter. He was only 37.
In 2023, nearly 8,000 catalytic converter components stolen in a single year, a staggering 728 percent increase from 2018.
In an attempt to crackdown on theft LA City Council passed a 8-4 motion vote that made it illegal to possess a detached catalytic converter unless you had valid documentation.
A viral video has resurfaced revealing Los Angeles council member Nithya Raman blaming Toyota for the increasing catalytic-converter theft ravaging the city - while opposing a motion to hold criminals accountable
This comes as the latest victim, actor and General Hospital star, Johnny Wactor, was shot and killed on Saturday in LA when he confronted thieves breaking into his car attempting to steal a catalytic converter
But Raman opposed the motion and placed the blame on the car company, Toyota, claiming they should not make their cars so 'easy to steal.'
'In this case, I think one of the things that infuriates me is that we have a company — whatever, Toyota — who makes the Prius, that essentially has a device on their cars which is super easy to remove. It's basically the value of a MacBook, right?' said Raman in the 2023 Council meeting.
'That is put in a place that is incredibly easy to access in your car, and all the costs of the thefts are given to us to bear instead of them [Toyota] having to manufacture a car that actually is not so easy to be stolen,' she continued.
Fellow Democrat, Eunises Hernandez, agreed and said the ban on possessing a catalytic was 'racist'.
'Criminalizing the mere possession of a catalytic converter, I think is the wrong way to go, because we know which communities are gonna be the ones most criminalized because of this,' Hernandez said.
'This makes it a misdemeanor, it creates a fine of $1000, you can go to jail for six months.'
'Even a short incarceration of a couple of days can destabilize someone's life forever, and leads to collateral consequences that they have to carry until they can get an expungement, if they can get that … I'm not in agreement with creating more opportunities to criminalize our communities,' Hernandez continued.
According to a KTLA report, police officers reported to the area of Pico Boulevard and Hope Street around 3:25am
Around 600,000 catalytic converters are stolen each year. Most cars are equipped with one converter but those with a dual exhaust system require two. Larger vehicles such as SUVs and trucks may have more than two.
According to the New York Times, stolen catalytic converters are passed through 'middlemen, smelters and refineries in the United States and overseas.' They can be stolen in under a minute and cost around $1,000 to replace.
LA has seen a sharp increase in car thefts since the Covid-19 pandemic - with the rate of thefts increasing every year since 2019.
There were more than 25,000 auto thefts across the city in 2023, a staggering 64 percent increase as compared to pre-pandemic numbers.
The LAPD reported Friday that, as of the end of April, the city's rise in the number of murders in 2024 continued to decline and, as of April 27, was only 4.2 percent above the number of murders reported at this time in 2023, NBC Los Angeles reported.
The last time the force updated robbery statistics, at the end of March 2024, thefts were up 9.5 percent, according to ABC 7.
Wactor, who appeared in 164 episodes of the soap opera from 2020 to 2022, was leaving his side job at a rooftop bar with a female colleague at around 3:25am Saturday in the area of West Pico Boulevard and South Hope Street, when he saw the three men, believing he was being towed.
Police said that one of the three men, all of whom were wearing masks, shot Wactor before fleeing in a separate vehicle.
Paramedics got to the scene shortly after and took him to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
The masked suspects remain at large and have yet to be identified or described.
Wactor's mother Scarlett told TMZ that her son saw three men trying to steal the catalytic converter off of his car
Scarlett Wactor, Johnny's mother, said that her son didn't attempt to fight them or even stop them from stealing but they still shot him and got away.
Johnny's younger brother Grant confirmed to DailyMail.com that Johnny was shot in the chest as he came upon the suspects who were trying to steal the catalytic converter from his truck.
He said his brother and his co-worker had to park about two blocks from the restaurant, so they were walking to their cars after they finished their shift.
Grant said they were brought up as 'Southern gentlemen,' so he was not surprised his older brother was walking his female co-worker to her car.
'We're Southern, born and raised, and we would never let a female walk to their car by herself.'