LA MESA, Calif. (Border Report) — Rioters vandalized and looted an entire strip mall over the weekend about 25 miles east of Downtown San Diego.
It was just one of the countless riots that broke out nationwide in the wake of the protests that followed the alleged murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.
Just down the street, they burned two banks to the ground, only rubble and a crippled steel structure left behind.
(Courtesy: Drone 5)
The looting took place Saturday night, and one of the businesses hit was Steve Clay’s Postal Annex.
“They went all the day down the line and damaged every business,” Clay said. “It was sickening just total and empty feeling in your stomach, this is your livelihood being destroyed.”
(OnScene.TV/Special to Border Report)
Clay has been in business for 17 years and never expected this to happen in his hometown of La Mesa.
“You can have a protest, you can do it peacefully then go home, but don’t come after us,” Clay said.
Clay was happy to see what happened in the aftermath as neighbors and total strangers showed up to help clean and board up damaged businesses.
(Salvador Rivera/Border Report)
“People came out in the middle of the night and showed up with wood, I don’t even know where they came from, they put up all these planks all the way down,” said Clay.
“Then the next day hundreds of people came and showed up took everything out of my business, cleaned everything out and vacuumed, they had snow shovels to get all the broken glass, and they put it back together.”
There were other protests in the San Diego area over the weekend, but aside from a few confrontations with police, the demonstrations were fairly peaceful.
