Looting or Trespass During an Emergency in North Carolina

North Carolina prohibits looting – N.C.G.S. 14-288.6 – which is either punishable as a misdemeanor or felony.

It’s a misdemeanor for “any person [to] enter[] upon the premises of another without legal justification when the usual security of property is not effective due to the occurrence or aftermath of riot, insurrection, invasion, storm, fire, explosion, flood, collapse, or other disaster or calamity is guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor of trespass during an emergency.

It’s a felony for “any person [to] commit[] the crime of trespass during emergency and, without legal justification, obtains or exerts control over, damages, ransacks, or destroys the property of another is guilty of the felony of looting and shall be punished as a Class H felon.