The fall of San Francisco
Leftists in San Francisco are in denial.
The San Francisco Chronicle is constantly putting out reports selectively parsing data to present a picture claiming there's no big crime issue in San Francisco.
At the same time, Soros-financed district attorney Chesa Boudin is telling the press 'not me' as the smash-and-grab lootings of retailers in the city continue with few consequences. “This is not a San Francisco specific problem. It doesn’t have anything to do with local policy,” Boudin told KPIX, as if the problem didn't have a San Francisco pioneering nexus or that all of the affected cities happen to have district attorneys just like him. For people who think there's a problem, see, it's all in their heads. “If it feels that way then we’ve got work to do. We want everyone to feel safe and to be safe in San Francisco, and until everybody is safe and feels safe our work is not done. That’s why I’ve been focused on proactive work.”
Feels? You see, you are only imagining things. Chesa doesn't want you to be safe, he wants you to "feel" safe, never mind what actually happens. Chesa's job as he sees it is to serve as chief therapist, not chief law enforcer, not to relieve criminals of their opportunities, but silly you of your delusions.
Outside all that parsing, San Francisco is starting to look like this:
Tandler, who appears to be a San Francisco community activist, and calls herself a moderate liberal, has a huge string of Twitter pictures showing just how bad it's gotten around Union Square, which is San Francisco's once-glittering high-end retail center.
There's more here:
Stores are being boarded up around the 19th century Union Square shopping area, which are mostly beautiful old buildings, some of which could have actually been seen by famous city residents such as Mark Twain and William T. Sherman. That might include the city's single Frank Lloyd Wright building just off Union Square on Maiden Lane, which houses a high-end Italian retailer on its bottom floor: You know that both that building owner and the shop itself would want to protect those contents.
Max Mara, Harry Winston, Louis Vuitton, Burberry, Hublot, LaCoste, Neiman Marcus, Yves St. Laurent, Fendi, Ferragamo, Gucci ... all boarded up as if at war. I used to shop at San Francisco's Gucci in the early 1980s because the sale-rack Guccis were affordable for a college student back then and being a college student at the University of San Francisco, the Preppy Handbook told me to. Naturally, I worked at Brooks Brothers down the street at 201 Post Street. Sigh. It used to be elegant and engaging as an area. Now, it's got that Detroit-in-the-'80s look.
Anyone surprised that the crowds are staying away now? Who wants to spend a thousand bucks for high end retail wares in a war zone when there are nicer places one can go?
Imagine what trying to sell to Black Friday customers must have been like for the Louis Vuitton shop, which got mass-looted on Nov. 19, just before their anticipated Black Friday haul -- who would go there? Even if they went, what would their store have to sell?
It's not just the ambience issue, either, it's bona fide fears of violence. During a mass looting event in next-door Oakland, a former San Francisco police officer who was working security at a store was shot dead by a looter over the weekend. The mass-looting in San Francisco on Nov. 19, and the few arrested that followed, yielded two firearms recovered by police from the five arrested. That's forty percent who were armed and these were the slow underachieving looters who actually got caught -- the faster ones got away. The city's police chief said the police were "confronting armed individuals" in these lootings. The Chron of course called the whole thing a "wild weekend," omitting only the next expected words "of fun."
There's no significant plan for stopping these organized lootings. The city's plan thus far has been prophylactic measures unrelated to the root cause of the crime spree. They've closed the square to car traffic, as if cars were the problem, given that the looters like to come in car caravans and block off some roads from cops to permit their own escapes. In San Francisco, arrests for these mass lootings can be counted on one hand, with even the less-bad San Francisco Examiner getting called out for padding the numbers in this story correction.
Gov. Gavin Newsom, no stranger to San Francisco's retail scene, given that he ran some fancy restaurants there before his political career, has taken interest in the issue by re-directing the California Highway Patrol to act as mall cops in the various shopping places that have been affected by mass lootings. Again, Band-Aid measures, no long-term solutions, given that the highway policing the CHP does is going to get neglected as a result, while the real reasons for the retail apocalypse goes unaddressed.
The root of the problem is district attorneys such as Chesa Boudin, who constantly let looters off to advance their Soros chaos agenda, have let the city go lawless. The Chron and Boudin yak a lot about more prosecution percentages, but fail to note that crimes are no longer being reported and police are no longer scooping up criminals off the streets. Why waste time with that dirty, thankless job only to see the effort go to waste with a district attorney who's just going to let the bad guys out, based on the fact that many in this group are black? Gangsta rap culture, which many black young people involved in these lootings are devoted to, glorifies looting. Want low crime rates? Just have the cops bust no one and the locals stop reporting crimes.
"The stats are fictitious. Nobody reports. People are hunkering down," Tandler tweeted.
But pictures don't lie. Now even the abundant crowds, in the past brimming with tourists with cash to spend, are staying away. Black Friday in San Francisco's Union Square among the boarded-up shops, appeared to be a bust.
“I don’t feel safe anymore,” said Jocelyn Quiroz. “We try not to go to San Francisco anymore because it doesn’t make sense to go there right now.”
Quiroz, who chose to shop on Monday at the Stanford Shopping Center in Palo Alto, said she’s more vigilant of her surroundings while shopping and picky about where she goes in the wake of the recent retail smash-and-grabs.
There's no end in sight to this, so the boarded-up shops are likely to continue so long as Boudin is on the job, which would be until June at the earliest, assuming the voters wake up and recall him.
San Francisco in the meantime can now adjust to its new normal. And you can bet that more retailers will pull up stakes and move to some less-looter-friendly place to do business. They've already lost one Target store, and a string of Walgreens. (The Chron of course, claims it's not really happening for the reasons it's obviously happening). As for the closing of the Target, the store seems to have been misidentified in an earlier report, and SFGate attributed the whole thing to a plot by Jared Kushner. Kid you not.
San Francisco's mayor, meanwhile, has her own priorities:
This is gaslighting like nobody's business.
The Chronicle's propaganda effort to boost Boudin, however, should continue through the coming months with denials about crime, claims about tough enforcement and other nonsense that does not square with people can see and experience with their own eyes.
But there's no arguing that the city is in decline. People move away from places with boarded-up shops, particularly if they've got money to do it. If they are in San Francisco to start with, already paying its inflated taxes and costs of living, it's quite likely they do. Already, a poll shows that nearly half of San Francisco's residents plan to move away. That was in July. One wonders what the percentage is now.
Let's not forget another sort of longstanding problem in that city -- the disappearance of the city's black residents based on flight from the high costs of living in the city. These are the working class people, not the welfare class, who have been hit hardest by the city's wokester policies. Heckuva job, leftists. Speaking of 'systemic racism...'
The pushback from the far-left and its media allies in this city should probably not be surprising given that the city has been steeped in leftism for four decades. But the decline of the city seems to be coming suddenly now and the city is getting joyless and ugly. Even the buildings are taking on an ugly gray tone, those once joyfully colored Victorian houses and other buildings -- they're all going to a defensive-mode battleship or tungsten gray. Witg the left having no answers other than its great gaslightings, San Franciscans can now decide if they'd like to have their lovely city or see their city become the next Detroit, a cautionary tale to all other cities.
Image: Twitter screen shot
AT THIS TIME, THERE MAY BE NO GREATER THREAT TO AMERICA THAN BLACK VIOENCE AND LOOTING!
WILL BLACK LIVES LOOT FINISH OFF RETAIL STORES?
A Holiday Crisis is Imminent as Retailers Face Bankruptcy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RLH4Jd_7a0
2 BLACK men wanted in connection with CTA Red Line robbery
BLACK CAR THEFT
'Shocks the conscience': Chicago police arrested 11-year-old BLACK BOY for carjacking, Brown says
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqEnkK9yCfc
HOW MUCH DOES BLACK MOB LOOTING COST AMERICA? HOW PAYS? NOT BLACK AMERICA!
https://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2021/11/mob-looting-new-black-sport-what-is.html
Over a dozen vehicles pulled up to the Broadway Plaza shopping mall. Some eighty vandals, some wielding crowbars, ran inside Nordstrom and stole merchandise. Five Nordstrom employees were physically assaulted.
The action was said to be over in less than a minute. With their bounty in hand, estimated at $200,000, the thieves drove off in different directions. Only three were apprehended. Of those, one was illegally carrying a firearm.
Mobs of Thieves Loot Multiple Best Buy Stores in Twin Cities on Black Friday
Groups of looters hit two Best Buy stores in Minnesota’s Twin Cities just after 8:00 p.m. on Black Friday, according to reports.
One of the looting frenzies occurred at the Burnsville Best Buy, where 20-30 suspects rushed the store in a flash mob-style robbery, KSTP reported.
Burnsville Police Capt. Don Stenger said that no weapons were used in the Burnsville shoplifting incident, according to the Star Tribune. “We don’t know exactly what was taken or the dollar value,” Stenger added.
The second looting incident took place at the Maplewood Best Buy, where police say a group of ten to twelve looters, comprised of adults and juveniles, stole “high value items,” according to KSTP.
Police were told that the suspects walked into the store at the same time and worked in tandem to steal hoverboards, televisions, and tablets, among other items, the Star Tribune reports. No one was injured in either incident and as of Saturday, no suspects were arrested.
Police are investigating if the incidents are related, CBS Minnesota reported.
Best Buy released the following statement via a spokesperson regarding the looting incidents:
Retailers across the country are seeing spikes in crime. These incidents have been, by and large, non-violent though often traumatic for those who witnessed them. As an industry, we are working with local law enforcement and taking additional security precautions where it makes sense.
We are also working at the federal level to pass a law that would make the online re-selling of these stolen goods much more difficult, materially reducing the incentive to commit the crimes in the first place.
“We can’t tolerate that kind of behavior. Just as a society, we just can’t,” said Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher during a live stream, according to CBS Minnesota.
Dave Vang, a retail specialist from St. Thomas University, weighed in on potential causes for the rise in looting.
“The pandemic and some political issues. A lot of police force has been spread very thinly over some parts of the country,” he told KSTP.
He added that the thieves sell the merchandise online at discounted rates compared to the retailers they steal from and that consumers should triple-check the legitimacy of an online seller.
“If you want to buy electronics from Best Buy, buy it from the Best Buy website. Don’t buy the same thing that someone claims it’s brand new, but is 30 percent or 40 percent cheaper,” Vang told KSTP.
In a separate incident, police say a man was fatally stabbed outside of a Houston Best Buy on Black Friday. The incident occurred at 6:05 p.m., and “Witnesses stated the victim and another male were seen walking together to the business and having an argument that escalated into a physical altercation in the parking lot,” according to the Houston Police Department (HPD).
“I see the guy, he hit the guy on the floor, then like he didn’t care and he hit him in his face, and then he hit him with the knife, then he walked away,” witness Beni Jaafar told Click 2 Houston.
“The suspect is described only as a black male with dreadlocks wearing a yellow, reflective traffic vest,” according to the HPD.
Comedian Dave Chappelle’s The Closer: A racist tirade disguised as stand-up comedy
https://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2021/10/dave-chappelle-one-more-racist-black.html
Thieves crash UHaul into auto parts store
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-fAr-bP3Ds
Woman who livestreamed her looting spree in Chicago released from prison the same day she arrived to serve her 17-month sentence
https://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2021/11/blacks-and-looting-case-against-taeshia.html
I’d like to be able to say “only in Chicago,” which seems to have become the world capital of street crime, but alas, “criminal justice reform” runs rampant – as do criminals, even those convicted of felonies.
Surveillance video shows man stealing coveted puppy from pet store
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsqXrzqFD5o
EXCLUSIVE: Two San Francisco Prosecutors Quit, Join Effort to Recall City's DA'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqTfK2pRXs0
BIG SPIKE IN SHOPLIFTING, THIEVES GET MORE BRAZEN, POVERTY DANGER AHEAD WARNING
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4BMXf2G6h8
Walgreens Closes Five Bay Area Stores amid Shoplifting Surge
https://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2021/10/black-lives-loot-walgreens-closes-five.html
VIDEO
WATCH: Ulta Beauty Ransacked During Store Hours in Chicago
https://www.breitbart.com/crime/2021/09/28/ulta-beauty-ransacked-during-store-hours-chicago/
11 Suspects Sought In $100K Handbag Heist At Palo Alto Louis Vuitton Store
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzIkiCOuQNE
Video shows suspected thieves sprinting out of California Neiman
Marcus with designer handbags
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1ctqHXAcXM
Brazen shoplifting video in San Francisco becomes issue in California recall
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAIcsHh8vso
Brazen, Serial Shoplifter Appears In Court As DA Vows To Crack Down On Retail Thefts
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvvnsvVJrdE
Busting an Organized Shoplifting Ring
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYFvtPM2su4
Vicky Nguyen Gets Inside Look At Retail Theft Rings | TODAY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97x6bLB5RhM
San Francisco locals react to rampant shoplifting, break-ins | Fox News Digital Original
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BU6o2MIuMQc
Target Cuts Store Hours in San Francisco Due to Shoplifting Surge
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NNjdF0cCuQ
Group steals $30K from store in seconds | FOX6 News Milwaukee
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_S2pX-VRZXc
Major Arrest In $1 Million Apple Store Thefts
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0SCIkKgu7A
Apple Store Robbery Suspects Arrested
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GT9Jc7lB_Zo
Pricey Heist Lasts 34 Seconds, Ends With $200K Jewelry Stolen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09aI0HAqtBM
Jewelry heist captured on video at Avenues Mall store
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6goU5Fj_b8
Credit Card Thieves Caught on Tape Using Skimmers | Nightline | ABC
News
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAP7sVh4smc
Man Trapped Inside of Store After Serial Thieving Spree | I Survived a Crime | A&E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmLUEQUd6pQ
Walgreens Closes Five Bay Area Stores amid Shoplifting Surge
Michael M. Santiago/Getty
The ongoing shoplifting surge has forced Walgreens to close five more San Francisco stores as local law enforcement continues to do next to nothing to curtail the problem.
In a statement to SF Gate, Walgreens spokesman Phil Caruso confirmed “organized retail crime” has strangled San Francisco stores.
“Organized retail crime continues to be a challenge facing retailers across San Francisco, and we are not immune to that,” Caruso said. “Retail theft across our San Francisco stores has continued to increase in the past few months to five times our chain average.”
“During this time to help combat this issue, we increased our investments in security measures in stores across the city to 46 times our chain average in an effort to provide a safe environment,” he added.
Asha Safai, San Francisco Board of Supervisor for District 11 admitted to feeling “devastated” over the closure a Walgreens store that has “been a staple for seniors, families and children for decades.”
“I am completely devastated by this news – this Walgreens is less than a mile from seven schools and has been a staple for seniors, families and children for decades. This closure will significantly impact this community,” he tweeted.
Safai told SFGate that the shoplifting had crippled the store’s bottom-line and endangered the staff and customers to an unhealthy degree.
“This is a sad day for San Francisco,” Safai said. “We can’t continue to let these anchor institutions close that so many people rely on.”
Shoplifting has skyrocketed in San Francisco recently, likely a result of Proposition 47, which dictates stealing would not be a felony in California if the item stolen did not exceed $950.
The damage has been felt across a range of business outlets.
In May of this year, The San Francisco News described the situation as being “out of control,” noting that 17 Walgreens have had to close in the past five years due to rampant shoplifting in the city.
17 Walgreen locations in San Francisco have closed their doors within the last five years according to a report from the SF Chronicle. Ten of these closures transpired from 2019 to this year with the last Walgreens store to close its door as of this writing, back on March 17. The cause of the closures is due to rampant shoplifting and looting that has transpired at Walgreen locations in the city believed to be perpetuated by an organized crime ring.
On Thursday, May 13 a hearing was held by the Board of Supervisors with retailers, the SFPD, the district attorney’s office, and probation departments. Brendan Dugan, director of organized retail crime and corporate investigations, believes that San Francisco is at the center of organized retail crime. He brought up a state bust in the Bay Area from last year in which $8 million in stolen merchandise was confiscated from five suspects. The merchandise came from CVS, Target and Walgreens stores from all across San Francisco.
The lack of enforcement made shoplifters so nonchalant and casual they would often steal in broad daylight while awestruck customers documented the crime on their iPhones, allowing for some viral internet moments.
CrimeEconomyLaw and OrderCaliforniaSan FranciscoshopliftingWalgreens
San Francisco Safeway Cuts Hours Due to Rampant Shoplifting
383waltarrrrr / Flickr / CC / Cropped
A prominent Safeway supermarket in the Castro district of San Francisco is limiting its hours due to rampant shoplifting, the latest example of a retail store closing or limiting its operations in the left-liberal city due to out-of-control petty crime.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported Saturday:
Shoppers at the Safeway in San Francisco’s Castro neighborhood will see a noticeable change to the store: It now closes at 9 p.m. due to what one supervisor described as “out of control” shoplifting.
Once open 24 hours a day, the Safeway store on Market and Church streets now has the earliest closing hours of all the Pleasanton-based supermarket chain’s San Francisco storefronts, most of which stay open until midnight.
…
[San Francisco Supervisor Rafael] Mandelman said theft at the Safeway at 2020 Market Street has been “out of control” and recently met with Safeway representatives “to better understand the issues at this store.” He said he also planned to meet with the San Francisco Police Department and the office of San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin “to see what is currently being done to deter theft at Safeway, and to figure out a plan to do better.”
Earlier this year, Walgreens closed 17 stores in the city due to shoplifting, which skyrocketed after California voters passed Proposition 47, a ballot initiative aimed at criminal justice reform, which reclassified thefts up to $950 as misdemeanors. As a result, such thefts are rarely prosecuted.
The crime spike began under former district attorney George Gascón, who is now district attorney for Los Angeles County, and has continued under Chesa Boudin, who now faces a likely recall election.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
NYC Man Arrested Three Times in 36 Hours Brags of Release Due to Cash Bail Reform
A homeless man in Brooklyn arrested three times in 36 hours boasted to police he would avoid being held on bail because he “didn’t have a record,” the New York Post reported Sunday.
The man was eventually proved to be correct, the outlet said.
“Agustin Garcia, 63, was charged with robbing two Manhattan straphangers — wielding a knife against one of them — and stealing a beer from a Bronx bodega in rapid succession,” prosecutors and law enforcement sources explained to the Post.
Prosecutors asked two times that Garcia be held on bail during the alleged crime spree, but were denied by judges.
It was not until the suspect was caught a third time that he was taken to Bellevue Hospital to undergo a psychiatric evaluation, but still with no bail to detain him.
“We can arrest people, we can cut them loose, incarcerate them, but it’s not addressing the underlying problems,” a law-enforcement source noted, adding the number one problem seen in cases was mental health.
Garcia’s brother, Jose, acknowledged the source was correct regarding the case.
“My brother is a sick person,” Jose Garcia said during an interview with the Post, adding Agustin has schizophrenia. “He’s been sick for the past 35 years.”
The suspect’s alleged crime spree began November 21 when officers said he took a dozen cans of beer from a bodega in the Bronx. He was later charged with petty larceny, the Post report continued:
Cops released him on a desk-appearance ticket pending a court hearing. Then just a few hours later, Garcia was back in handcuffs. Police said he was busted again around 3 a.m. Nov. 22 at the Canal Street subway station in Manhattan after allegedly stealing a straphanger’s backpack and pulling a knife on her while warning her to “stay back” when she followed him.
“I know I’m getting out,” the suspect told officers following his arrest, the sources said. “I have no record.”
Garcia, who reportedly had no earlier convictions, was charged with felony robbery, and prosecutors requested he be held on $15,000 cash bail or a bond of $45,000.
However, the man was let go on supervised release with no bail thanks to Manhattan Criminal Court Judge James Clynes.
“Back on the street again, the suspect stole an iPhone from another straphanger at the West 145th Street/Lenox Avenue subway station around 7:15 a.m. Nov. 23 and fled with it into the subway tunnel,” authorities told the Post.
Officers nabbed him when he attempted to climb a subway platform back inside the station, according to sources. Garcia was eventually charged with grand larceny and also criminal trespassing.
The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office tried to put Garcia in jail and recommended he be kept there on $20,000 cash bail or a bond of $60,000.
“But Manhattan Criminal Court Judge Valentina Morales denied the request and instead ordered a 72-hour psych evaluation for Garcia at Bellevue,” the Post article read.
The hospital told the outlet the suspect remained there on Sunday.
Several laws took effect at the start of 2020 in New York, including one that would release potentially dangerous suspects from jail, CBS New York reported in December 2019:
New York’s bail reform law eliminates pretrial detention and cash bail for the vast majority of misdemeanor and non-violent felony cases. Hundreds of offenses such as stalking, grand larceny, assault as a hate crime, and second degree manslaughter will no longer be eligible for bail or pretrial detention.
According to the Post, a spokesman with the state court system explained judges who did not set bail for Garcia used their own discretion because they are authorized to do so under the law.
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