Two teenagers shared footage of themselves breaking into the Los Angeles Clippers upcoming new arena and wreaking havoc on TikTok last week, KTLA reports.
Footage showed the juveniles climbing an orange ladder outside the construction grounds and entering Intuit Dome in Inglewood, California, before walking around the empty arena's hallways and bleachers and shooting basketballs on the uncompleted court. One suspect, who was wearing Los Angeles Lakers pajama pants and Crocs in the footage, was seen using work buckets to attempt to slam dunk before spraying a fire extinguisher at the hoop.
The two teens were then seen climbing up onto the bridge in the rafters and managed to gain access to the roof, at which point they posed while taking panoramic shots of the city's skyline before the conclusion of the video.
The TikTok post even included the caption, "Breaking into Clippers stadium," and included several NBA-related hashtags such as "Clippers," "Lakers" and "LeBron James." Inglewood Mayor James E. Butts confirmed that the two teens and their parents were identified following the incident.
“It will be very clear to these young men — and to people who are TikTok followers — that you have a moment of TikTok greatness followed by a little bit of misery. And so we don’t play around with these things,” Butts said via ABC 7.
“When you have construction sites, they’re nuisances and they attract kids and they attract people who wants to steal tools,” Butts added. “The fact of the matter is, that’s what happens when you build a major project.”
Butts confirmed that security at the soon-to-be opened arena would be "bumped" up following the incident.
“What’s going to happen is they’re going to increase the off-construction hour times security,” Butts said via FOX 11 Los Angeles.
Last week, the Clippers officially announced a new logo, uniforms and court design to coincide with their move to a new arena during the 2024-25 NBA season.