Hours after Kyle Rittenhouse was found not guilty on all counts, protests erupted in cities around the nation. In at least one case, a “mostly peaceful protest” involved or provided cover for coordinated looting. More looting in another city followed. It’s unclear whether the Rittenhouse verdict and the looting are actually related, or whether it was simply opportunists making their own hefty discounts before Black Friday. But it is interesting that it’s just the kind of violent lawlessness that Rittenhouse, ill-advised though it may have been, was in Kenosha that fateful night to stop.

In Chicago Friday night, a gang of roughly 15 masked men conducted a smash-and-grab raid at the Neiman Marcus on the Magnificent Mile. It took only moments for them to rush into the department store, grab armloads of merchandise, and flee in three cars. A similar incident happened at a Louis Vuitton store in Oakbrook, Illinois, just outside Chicago.

Kenosha is 66 miles from Chicago, and protesters in the Windy City had taken to the streets to, according to one of them, “show these right-wingers [and] the system that we won’t back down.” Another one complained of the verdict’s “dangerous precedent” because Rittenhouse “went up there from Illinois to Wisconsin with an AR-15 with the intent to kill.” Actually, the jury concluded that wasn’t true.

It’s unclear whether any of the protesters were also angry over the five people shot and killed, including a 14-year-old boy, in Chicago over the weekend. Another 34 people were wounded by gunfire. It’s also unclear whether protesters think disagreeing with a verdict justifies stealing tens of thousands of dollars in merchandise.

Meanwhile, in lawless San Francisco (a.k.a. Pelosiville), organized retail crime isn’t new, but a couple of weekend incidents like those in Chicago were remarkable nonetheless. Friday night, a group of a dozen or so thieves descended upon the Louis Vuitton store in Union Square. On Saturday, a Nordstrom location a few miles outside San Francisco was robbed by 80 — yes, eighty — looters in ski masks. The looters, armed with crowbars and other weapons, rushed the store, grabbed armloads of goods, assaulted three employees, and fled. Nearly a dozen high-end retailers in Union Square were hit, and several more in neighboring Hayward and San Jose were ransacked on Sunday.

“California asked for it when they made shoplifting more attractive by raising the amount that would trigger felony charges to $950,” observed political analyst Rick Moran. “Ever since then, pharmacies, grocery stores, and other retail outlets have moved out of the city as organized gangs of shoplifters brazenly take whatever they want, in bulk.”

Looting in Democrat cities to protest the supposed racism of Republicans is nothing new, but it’s usually part of those “mostly peaceful protests” that provide cover for seemingly random violence. Now, the looters seem to be targeting stores frequented by the rich as some sort of attempt at “equity.” This kind of coordinated attack — sometimes in broad daylight — is worrisome. Voters in these Democrat strongholds might want to take note.

Update: They’re spreading the joy to Los Angeles…