If San Francisco’s leftist District Attorney Chesa Boudin wants to know why he might be recalled in a special election, he should look at the video of the smash-and-grab robbery at Neiman Marcus in San Francisco. The footage shows a gang running from the store with arms full of handbags.
Such are the brazen thefts in the once-beautiful city that stores are closing early … and some are closing permanently.
Thus, a bipartisan group of San Franciscans has said enough is enough. They hope to collect the more than 51,000 signatures by August 11 to trigger a recall election and boot Boudin out of office.
NM Video
The latest video (see tweet below) depicts an all-too-common scene in the cable-car city: a brazen, daylight robbery. From across the street, someone filmed the gang after it raided the handbag section of the pricey store.
Ten thieves escaped in three getaway cars. The robbery reprised a similar handbag theft from the Neiman Marcus in Palo Alto in May.
“This is so hard to watch,” a woman tweeted about the Neiman Marcus video:
We’ve become a 3rd world country… It’s completely lawless. From the drugs, shootings, stabbings, robberies, home invasions, the volume of hate crimes and the amount of homeless people. Omg the list goes on and on. It is sad what’s happening in the USA
Tweeted another: “San Francisco is simply a lawless city. I have little desire to set foot in it ever again.”
Last month, another video depicted a bicycle-riding shoplifter riding out of a Walgreen’s while a security guard did nothing. Police did catch that thief.
In fairness to Boudin, part of the problem is state law. In 2014, Californians overwhelmingly voted to downgrade property theft of goods worth less than $950 from a felony to a misdemeanor.
The brainiac behind that idea was then-prosecutor George Gascón, who left San Francisco and moved to Los Angeles. That city’s voters elected him district attorney. He immediately announced he would stop prosecuting myriad crimes. A judge blocked that action and said the leftist cannot rewrite state law to his own liking.
But back to the city by the bay.
Citing data from the police department, the Daily Mail reported that larceny is out of control:
There were 12,194 instances in 2021 between January 1 and June 27, 2021 — the department’s most recent data. This is a drop by around 11percent from the same time period in 2020, when there were 13,804 instances. The next highest crime is burglary and there were 3,624 instances in 2021, a rough five percent increase from the 3,439 acts committed in 2020 between the same time period.
Stores Closing, Recall Petition
Last week, the newspaper reported, Target announced that it would close stores at 6 p.m. because of the thefts.
Walgreens, the target of the health-conscious-thief who pedaled away from the scene of his crimes, has shut down multiple locations:
The Walgreens scene followed the closing of 17 San Francisco Walgreens locations due to shoplifting cases, where theft in the pharmaceutical chain’s 53 remaining stores is four times the average for stores elsewhere in the country, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. One Walgreens reportedly loses $1,000 a day to shoplifters, the news outlet adds.
No wonder Boudin is up for recall.
“San Franciscans throughout the City and across the political spectrum are united to recall embattled district attorney Chesa Boudin,” the official petition website says:
Under Boudin, elected November, 2019, our city’s criminal justice system has instead been suspended. Criminals are emboldened due to lack of accountability; those perpetrators arrested are simply let go, commit more crimes, and unfortunately, many are deadly. Our beloved city has seen an astronomical increase in violent crime, home invasions, shops looted, car-jackings, rampant and unchecked drug dealing and business property theft, even under Covid-19 restrictions.
EVERY RESIDENT AND EVERY VISITOR TO SAN FRANCISCO IS A POTENTIAL TARGET. OUR HOMES, OUR PROPERTY AND OUR LIVES ARE AT RISK.
The petition needs 51,325 signatures by August 11.
Twenty-nine San Franciscans organized the effort. The majority are either Democrats, 41 percent, or of no party affiliation, 24 percent. Just 31 percent are Republicans and 4 percent independents.
For his part, Boudin blames cops for the rise in crime. He says they don’t follow up on crimes and don’t know how to do their jobs.
That’s rich. His biological parents are Weather Underground terrorists Kathy Boudin and David Gilbert, who murdered two cops and a security guard in 1981. He is named for terrorist Joanne Chesimard, another cop murderer, who now lives in Cuba under the alias Assata Shakur.
