The economy may play a role in the rise in groups challenging the authority of police but the true culprit is decades of left wing indoctrination and hug-a-thug law enforcement that have created a new breed of criminal that not only doesn’t fear punishment for crimes but seeks out rapine and violence simply for the thrill of hurting others.

Philadelphia, for example, has been struggling to contain “flash mobs” of young people who use social networks to organize seemingly impromptu gatherings. The Philly mobs aren’t social events though, they are a campaign of random violence and intimidation that is quickly escalating out of control:

Business owners yesterday called on Mayor Nutter to stop “flash mobs” on South Street after patrons couldn’t shop, dine or get home on Saturday night because of the hordes of teens roaming the neighborhood.

Inspired by Twitter messages to “come to South Street,” police say hundreds – business owners say thousands – of young teens stampeded down South Street in waves, jumping on top of cars, knocking over pedestrians and fighting and cursing.

“It was like a tsunami wave,” said a store employee.

“The cops were overwhelmed,” said a store manager.

The South Street business owners called on Nutter to impose a curfew of 10 p.m. or earlier after frightened managers locked their doors, only allowing customers inside.

[…]

Saturday’s was the sixth flash mob to hit the city since last May: three on South Street; two in the Gallery, including one that spread to Macy’s; and one along Market Street East that spread to the area near City Hall.

Several store owners and managers documented the stampede with cell phones or store surveillance tape.

A pizza shop owner said that some in the mob were chanting, “Black Boys!” and “Burn the city.”

One youth was overheard on his cell phone saying: “Bring baseball bats to South Street.”

Apparently this all happened on the first nice day of spring and local businesses were serving the community. For some reason the young people in Philly couldn’t let a little slice of Americana like that go unmolested:

By 9 p.m., Yee Chau, manager of eModa, a clothing store, on South near 3rd, said “It was total mayhem. Kids were out of control. They were wall-to-wall. You couldn’t see the sidewalks.”

One armed owner, who showed the Daily News his gun permit, protected his business by standing outside with five assistants.

At Supper, a restaurant in the 900 block, bartender Kyle Fennie opened the locked door to let two woman customers out, but a mass of teens descended, and he let the women back inside. During a lull, he walked them to their cars.

About 10 p.m., police fanned out at either 2nd or 3rd Street and gradually moved the crowds west on South ot Broad. Kids started running at top speed, with some going around the block, and coming up behind the cops.

About 10:30 p.m. on South near 6th, Olympia Pizza II employee Seth Kaufman, 20, was in front of the pizza shop, trying to prevent kids from coming inside to fight with young customers who were eating.

As the crowd pushed the door to get inside, Kaufman pushed back. The crowd pushed again, and inside, the owners, 66-year-old Peter Psihogios, his wife, Harula, 58, and son Paul, 30, were pushing back on the store’s double glass doors to keep them shut.

Kaufman said that kids slugged him, and he slugged them back, and then he was jumped, with kids kicking and punching him until he fell.

The elder Psihogios tried to bring Kaufman inside, but he was punched in the head.

Kaufman has bruises all over his body from face to legs.

“He saved our establishment from them coming in”said Paul Psihogios. “We owe him a lot of gratitude.”

Numerous South Street residents reported hearing what they thought were gunshots about 11:15 p.m. around 13th Street south of South but police could not confirm it.

A 27-year-old woman was hospitalized when the crowd of male and female teens surrounded her and beat her half to death for no reason. In fact, the mobs seem to have had no motive at all aside from the desire to do violence. The Mayor held a press conference literally begging parents to stop their kids from participating in these organized riots, because police can’t.

This violence is no surprise in Philly where elementary school children have been caught playing a game called “catch and wreck” in which a group of  children jump homeless people. Most of the victims are in fact not homeless. An 11-year-old boy has been arrested in connection with two “catch and wreck”  assaults including one on a 73-year-old man who suffered a heart attack as a result of the severe beating he received.

While Philadelphia is descending into chaos the town of Hemet, California is facing a more organized threat from the Surenos-affiliated Vagos motorcycle gang who are mounting a punitive campaign against the local police force:

HEMET, Calif. (KABC) — The Hemet Police Department is on heightened alert after another threat against officers.

Authorities said an unidentified person called 911 Friday at about 5:45 p.m. and said a police car in the Hemet San Jacinto area would be blown up in the next 48 hours.

The caller said the attack would be in retaliation for the law enforcement sweep against the Vagos Motorcycle Club earlier in the week. At least 30 members the gang were arrested Wednesday in an interstate crackdown. The gang specializes in methamphetamine sales, identity theft and violence, Riverside County sheriff’s Capt. Walter Meyer said.

However even before the sweep, there have been at least three booby trap attacks on anti-gang officers.

The first attack was on December 31. Someone rigged a gang task-force building in Hemet to blow up by rerouting a gas line, filling the building with natural gas. No one was hurt.

Then almost two months later, the building’s front gate was rigged with another booby trap. This time a gun was set up to fire on the first officer to enter the building. The bullet narrowly missed the officer, and again, no one was hurt.

Just a couple of weeks ago there was a third attack. A pipe bomb was attached to an unmarked squad car. The bomb unit was called in, the device was rendered safe.

The Vagos are one of the few 1%er clubs to have several chapters in Mexico so they could be influenced by the power gangs have down there, but the economic collapse is playing a big role in their bravado:

The incidents have shaken a close-knit police department already demoralized by steep budget cuts that last year saw its officer numbers slashed by a quarter to 68.

The Vagos are allied with (whatever is left of) The Mongols and The Bandidtos as well as any number of Surenos-affiliated street gangs. The 68 strong Hemet police simply aren’t able to win a war of attrition with The Vagos if they decide to call in reinforcements and begin anti-police operations the Mexican Cartels have. Even with state and federal law enforcement help there are only so many bullets, bomb disposals, and drug sweeps they can afford, and once The Vagos figure out that at this point the gangs have the greater resources with which to fight a street war we will see Juarez in America. Tuesday night four city pickups were torched by the gang across the street from the police station. I watched a report on this story this afternoon which claimed that the vehicles were torched in lieu of actual police vehicles because the cops are barricaded in their station.

And while the Juerezification of our own cities is occurring, the Juarez area of Mexico has become a national security threat that no one has the strategy, resources, or wherewithal to deal with. Threats Watch paints a grim picture of the situation on our southern border and the influence of the powerful cartels who have transcended mere drug gang status and are now literally a shadow Mexican government with its own paramilitary and a foreign policy based on corrupting U.S. law enforcement and extending the territory under their control deep into the American southwest. There is a worrying trend developing of Cartels forging closer ties with American or transnational street gangs that were once considered simple business partners in the drug trade such as Barrio Azteca and which, combined with the coming financial reality that we simply won’t be able to afford a robust police and military anymore, means we could be seeing gangs exert the kind of authority here that they do in Mexico.

The economic condition of America is of course simply a catalyst for problems that clearly were festering for some time. The dwindling resources of America now being redirected to unsustainable entitlements will weaken the infrastructure that shielded many of us from the reality of who we share our streets with. Less jobs and higher taxes means more poor people who don’t pay taxes, which means that localities are going to continue the trend of declining tax revenue. Declines in revenue mean less police, military and all the other services that kept us safe from the drug gangs our decadence funded, the biker gangs we romanticized, and the children we raised without morality or decency. Are you prepared for that?

Because America as a whole clearly isn’t.