Violent retail thefts in San Francisco only getting worse
San Francisco CA July 8 2021
It was near the end of the workday at Neiman Marcus in Union Square, when thieves smashed display cases, snatched items from racks and shelves, and then fled the scene.
They were met outside by getaway cars.
The San Francisco police department is investigating a rather brazen, daylight robbery at a the luxury retail shop on Monday.
This was reported as a “shoplifting incident,” according to local news. An officer can be seen recording the thieves on a cell phone but does not intervene.
San Francisco, which has pulled millions of dollars from the police force to give to community groups, has been the site of ever-increasing retail theft. A reporter reporting on theft in the city was, ironically, robbed while doing it. Shops have been closing because of the increase in retail theft.
However, the district attorney’s office said in a tweet that the crime surge has to do with racism. Senior director Kate Chatfield in the DA’s office responded to a tweet that read: “every single one of my friends right now is considering leaving. My friends are scared for their children, and their husbands are scared for their wives.”
Chatfield shot back: “‘Husbands are scared for their wives’ —your reminder that the ‘crime surge’ crowd shares the same ideology as The Birth of a Nation,” she said, referencing a white supremacist film. Then Chatfield locked her account.
In May, “vehicle break-ins in San Francisco were up by between 100% and over 750%,” reports Fox. This was “more than double, from 923 in 2020 to 1891 the same month in 2021.”
San Francisco is suffering under these conditions in part because of Prop. 47, which passed in 2014. It downgraded property theft below a certain amount to a misdemeanor, allegedly to free up cops to deal with more serious crimes. But what it’s really done is create conditions for lawlessness in the city.
Prosecutors in San Francisco appear to be more concerned with respecting suspects’ pronouns than preventing, deterring or prosecuting crime. Despite the uptick in crime, San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin said that from now on staff will be required to use people’s preferred pronouns. SF Gate reports that “burglaries and car thefts dramatically increased under Boudin, a trend that has continued into 2021.”
“Here in San Francisco we must, and we will,” Boudin said last week. “And we are leaders in modeling respect and modeling dignity and compassion, in all aspects of our society, including in our legal system.” Boudin is the son of the Weather Underground. While both his parents served time for and armored car robbery, he was raised by their radical comrades.
