Police are looking for at least two teens who they said not only were caught on surveillance video sneaking into the Clipper’s Intuit Dome but also posting it to social media.
The trespassing trend has been seen from Inglewood to the infamous graffiti-covered towers in Downtown Los Angeles, gaining thousands of views.
A video posted on Tiktok Thursday shows the two teens trespassing into the Clippers' new arena, the Intuit Dome, currently under construction in Inglewood. One boy, dressed in Lakers pajama pants, shoots a couple of hoops and sprays a fire extinguisher on the court.
The video garnered more than 90,000 views in one day.
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Inglewood Mayor James Butts says the incident happened Sunday, Feb. 25, and the Clippers staff turned surveillance video and photos over to police to investigate.
“This is trespassing. It's unacceptable,” said Butts. “In this era, people will do anything to post something on social media."
The same Tiktok user posted a video sneaking into the Intuit Dome a week prior on Feb. 17, showing him climbing the fence, even with construction workers on site, and in another video of him sneaking into the abandoned Oceanwide Plaza towers in August.
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The graffiti-covered Oceanwide Plaza has also become a social media sensation in the last couple of months with trespassers making their way through the buildings.
One Tiktok user posted himself sneaking in to skateboard on the top floor of a building about 40 stories high.
“Went for this kick flip and I literally almost fell. I am not doing that. That would’ve sucked,” he narrated, with blatant disregard for the police patrolling the towers.
“As I was saying, bro, the helicopters were on me! But I didn’t really care. I was just swinging doin’ my thing,” the poster said.
LA City Mayor Karen Bass also recently called out a video on social media of a man base-jumping from the top of the towers.
As of this week, the LAPD has arrested 28 people for trespassing at the towers, two as recent as Wednesday.
City leaders stress the importance of safety at these dangerous construction sites.
“The more bolder, the more audacious they want to become, they're going to get out there further into the ledge. I don't want someone slipping and falling and losing their life,” said City Councilman Kevin De Leon in an interview Wednesday.
In February, the city council approved more than $1 million to secure a fence around the Oceanwide Plaza after Chinese developers ran out of money to finish their project in 2019. They also approved funding for the LAPD to patrol the towers 24 hours a day. De Leon added that they will be sending the Chinese developers the bill.
However, he also said it would be up to the district attorney to follow through on legal consequences for the trespassers.
In Inglewood, Mayor Butts is adamant that detectives will find the two boys seen sneaking into the Intuit Dome and says they will be charged with trespassing.
