Thieves raiding rail cargo containers in Los Angeles

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Thieves have been raiding cargo containers aboard trains nearing downtown Los Angeles for months, leaving the tracks blanketed with discarded packages.

CBSLA reported Thursday that the sea of debris left behind included items that the thieves apparently didn’t think were valuable enough to take.

While CBSLA cameras were on the scene, one person was spotted running off with a container used to hold small packages, and a Union Pacific railroad police officer was spotted pursuing two other people.

The scene was the same in November, when NBC4 showed thousands of boxes discarded along tracks lined with homeless encampments northeast of downtown in the Lincoln Park area.