The Charlotte Hornets Team Store Was Looted When Protests Turned Violent

Hornets team store at arena looted #wcnc #KeithScott pic.twitter.com/rCh8mkKr5b

— Ty Chandler (@TyChandler_News) September 22, 2016

Look, I'm not particularly interested in talking about how sad all of this is. There seems to be a lot of uncertainty surrounding the particular event that sparked this madness, but that's no excuse for both sides escalating things to the point that an American city becomes a civil war zone. It's a depressing sign of the times which are increasingly beginning to feel like they are taking place in the 1960's.

That said, I do want to address the people that are saying that all looters are exploiting tragedy for financial gain. That may be true in some cases, but not the one pictured above. Whoever smashed that window to the Spectrum Center did it to send a message. They certainly could have found a more productive way to do so, but I feel comfortable saying that people aren't damaging private property just for some Roy Hibbert jersey tee's. That city doesn't even care enough about hosting the NBA's finest for a weekend to change their homophobic laws to allow gender shifters to piss where they please. I highly doubt it's citizens are going to risk getting hunted down by a police 'Huffy' just so they can better support their own shitty team.

If this happened at Duke or UNC then I would find their intentions much more suspicious, but that broken glass is more valuable to "the cause" than any handful of Hornets shit scooped from the display window in a 10-15 second span is to the wardrobe of any fan not named 'Purple Shit Guy'. I'm not even completely convinced they still make sure to keep the door locked after years without an attempted robbery, so don't tell me that Kemba Walker is good enough to make people start throwing trash cans at arenas in hopes of getting a Free.99 discount on his jersey.