Thieves raiding rail cargo containers in Los Angeles

Thieves have been raiding cargo containers aboard trains nearing downtown Los Angeles for months, leaving the tracks blanketed with discarded packages

LOS ANGELES -- Thieves have been raiding cargo containers aboard trains nearing downtown Los Angeles for months, taking packages belonging to people across the U.S. and leaving the tracks blanketed with discarded boxes.

The packages are from retailers including Amazon, REI and others, CBSLA reported Thursday. The sea of debris left behind includes 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 who were apparently going through packages.

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