[herr_oberst]

One of the points that's being missed here is that right now the police are turning a blind eye towards a lot of crime. Burglaries, muggings, car prowls, homeless taking over streets and sidewalks - nobody is taking responsiblity for law and order and it sometimes really feels like the wild west.
There was a situation last fall where a house was being repossessed that just essentially became a scene from Escape from New York and the cops washed their hands of any responsibility. The neighborhood there became a no-mans land for weeks and neighbors were PISSED!!!
And I don't know what you would have to do to get a traffic ticket right now. I think you could drag race down Broadway in five o'clock traffic, do smokey doughnuts when you got to the intersection and turn around and go back the way you came and not gotten pulled over.

But, boy-oh-boy, when the discarded food is being stolen less than a day after it hit the dumpster, well, it's the Crime of the Century. Officer Obee and the 27-8x10-colored-glossy-photographs-with-the-circles-and-arrows.
This was a show of force we haven't seen since the protests last summer, and it was completely out of proportion to the situation.
For the most part, the people that were trying to get the food were samaritans from ad-hoc foodbanks who pass out food to the homeless and hungry every day. This food was less than a day old and the weather here has been unseasonably cold, so very little chance of spoiling.

Society is out of whack right now. I fear for what the future brings.