Security watches shoplifter steal shelf-full of goods at a San Francisco Walgreens
San Francisco CA June 16 2021
A viral video shows a man riding his bicycle inside a San Francisco Walgreens, filling up a garbage bag with items from the store and then casually leaving out the front door as a security guard watched.
Three people, including the security guard, filmed the brazen theft Monday afternoon.
At one point, the security guard tried to grab the bag but the suspect still got away with the stolen goods.
Lyanne Melendez, a reporter for KGO-TV in San Francisco, said she witnessed the incident while shopping at the store on her day off work.
She recorded it on her cellphone and posted the video to Twitter, where it racked up more than 1.2 million views.
“It’s hard for me as a journalist to say ‘I won’t be involved, I can’t get involved,'” Melendez said. “I have to be sort of neutral, but this is also my city. I live in this city and I see this constantly.”
“At what point do we say enough is enough, we want our city back,” she added.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported that Walgreens has closed 17 stores in the city over the last five years.
Last month, San Francisco Supervisor Ahsha Safai held a hearing on organized retail theft. He said the district attorney and police department need a much more coordinated response in handling the city’s worsening shoplifting problem.
“It might even involve a more aggressive effort when it comes to surveillance cameras, because you see the same individual hitting multiple locations,” Safai told KGO-TV. “Then, you can begin to have deeper conversations about bringing multiple charges, or aggregate charges against that individual and really start to break this up.”
Safai has given local officials until mid-July to respond to his letter of inquiry on organized retail theft.
