Pam Shriver, a former professional tennis player and Hall of Fame member, had her car stolen near Los Angeles this week, along with several major trophies from her illustrious athletic career.
Shriver took her Dodge Durango Hellcat to flee from the Pacific Palisades fire, parking the vehicle overnight in the lot for the DoubleTree hotel in Marina del Rey, California, at which she was staying, according to a report from ESPN.
But early on Thursday morning, she unexpectedly could not locate her vehicle, which was holding five U.S. Open trophies, five French Open plates, and one Australian Open trophy.
The vehicle also had a handful of family photos.
“I was just starting to take things out to pack them in the car, and I was like, ‘Where’s the car?’” Shriver recalled to ESPN.
Instead she found broken glass in the parking lot where her car was parked.
Shriver booked rooms at the DoubleTree on the day that the Pacific Palisades fire started, sending her housekeeper, family friends, and pets to stay in the rooms.
She was in Hawaii at the time but returned to Los Angeles, joining those taking refuge at the hotel after grabbing some key items from her home.
Shriver was slated to attend the Australian Open on behalf of ESPN, for which she works as a tennis analyst, but went to Los Angeles instead.
Is crime out of control in California?
Her home in Brentwood remains unscathed but still does not have heating or power.
The former professional athlete expressed her dismay to ESPN.
“Now, my family’s a victim of a crime, too,” Shriver said.
“It’s really sad on so many levels that when people are at their lowest and in their most difficult times, people are doing things like this,” she added.
Shriver made a similar point in an interview with KTLA-TV.
“I feel for people who’ve lived through a double disaster, which is being impacted by these horrendous fires and also having a secondary trauma, like having a crime committed against your property,” she noted.
“It’s not just about me,” the athlete added. “I want our community to feel safe again.”
These brutal fires in Los Angeles have indeed impacted people of all socioeconomic levels. No one is immune from their destruction.
The blazes do not care if the homes they are consuming happen to be owned by celebrities or everyday citizens, wealthy people or poor people, progressives or conservatives.
The looting and theft which has accelerated in California has been the exact same way.
No one in Los Angeles is safe from the natural disaster of the wildfires, nor from the human disaster of a criminal culture left unchecked in the city and the state for years.
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