In early 2020, San Francisco’s progressive D.A. said drug dealing was a “victimless crime,” theft resulted from inequality, & the police were too militarized.
Today, SF is 400 cops short of the minimum, 700/year die from drugs, & looting is commonplace.
There has been a lot of gas-lightening of SF residents by highly ideological activists seeking to deny the obvious increase in crime. Often they show graphs of crime in the aggregate, inappropriately conflating homicides, robbery, & shoplifting, which is deliberately misleading.
Some crimes declined due to covid, and many of them, like car break-ins, are today above 2019 numbers, while others, like shoplifting show radically lower arrests per reports, which follows directly from the D.A.’s pledge to reduce prosecutions.
VIDEO EXPLAINER:
San Francisco’s liberal residents are now paying for private security guards, taking self-defense classes, and supporting a recall of Mr. Boudin, with a vote set for June 2022.
Retailers like Walgreens and Target are closing stores in the city, citing rampant shoplifting. Last week, a shockingly organized mob of looters ransacked a downtown Louis Vuitton store.
Mr. Boudin and his defenders say crime in San Francisco has actually declined under his watch. The store closings had little to do with shoplifting, they insist; Walgreens announced in 2019 it would close stores as a cost-saving measure.
Indeed, some crimes did decline, but for Covid-related reasons, while many other offenses increased. The pandemic crimped tourism, which meant fewer car break-ins and less shoplifting, but both are now on the rise. Car break-ins were 75% higher in May 2021 than 2019.
While it’s true that official incidents of shoplifting haven’t increased under Mr. Boudin, the punishment has changed—and the bad guys appear to have gotten the message. In 2019, 40% of shoplifting reports resulted in arrest; in 2021, only 19% did.
Walgreens says shoplifting is five times as high, and security costs 50 times as high, in its San Francisco stores as the chainwide average.
Meantime, the charging rate for theft by Mr. Boudin’s office declined from 62% in 2019 to 46% in 2021.
San Francisco’s jail population has plummeted to 766 in 2021 from 2,850 in 2019.
And more than half of all offenders, and three-quarters of the most violent ones, who are released from jail before trial, commit new crimes.
Like other progressive prosecutors around the country, Mr. Boudin has expressed great antipathy toward the police. At his election-night party, a supporter led the crowd in a chant against the Police Officers’ Association: “F— the POA! F— the POA!”
The SF Police Department is short 400 officers and demoralized. A security video obtained by the San Francisco Chronicle last week appeared to show officers allowing a robbery of a marijuana dispensary. Narcotics arrests declined by half 2019-21
Mr. Boudin has increased charges for some crimes. The charging rate for rape rose from 43% to 53%, and for narcotics dealing from 47% to 60%, even as it declined for theft, illegal weapons and assault.
What can be done? Read the whole piece @WSJ and find out!
“You have to reduce the American experience to a few ridiculously grim variables, and remove everything from movies to rock n’ roll to monster dunks, to spend today sulking.”
This @mtaibbi defense of Thanksgiving is so good it pisses me off a little bit
“We don’t ask Russians how they can sit around the yelochka every New Year and open presents knowing that Ivan the Terrible used to roast prisoners in giant frying pans, or how they can smoke Belomorkanal cigarettes knowing the White Sea canal is filled with the bones of slaves.”
“The Founding Fathers may have been scum, but they didn’t just steal a continent from the indigenous, they stole one from a British King, which is, come on, hilarious. These revolutionaries — Kurt Vonnegut called them “Sea Pirates” — then drew up a document sanctifying…
Father of Ahmaud Arbery just now: “ALL lives matter. I don’t want no daddy to watch his kid get shot down like that. It’s ALL our problem. So let’s keep fighting to make this a better place for all human beings. Love everybody! All human beings need to be treated equally.” ❤️👏🏼👑
Marcus Arbery, father of Ahmaud, who was senselessly murdered, had every reason to give an angry & vindictive speech, & he would have been applauded for doing so
Instead he affirmed his faith in the Kingian vision of racial equality, and in so doing restores our faith in America
I hope that, one day soon, @peterboghossian & I will be able to remove “All lives matter” from the list of “Taboo Speech” on our Woke Religion Taxonomy.
Its affirmation by Marcus Arbery, and its repetition by @TheRevAl Sharpton, has just brought that day much closer
More people will be killed in Philadelphia this year than at height of crack epidemic in 1990, and more than during any other year since at least 1960 & perhaps longer, since that's the first year the Police Department started tracking homicides
Long discussion of what could have caused the homicide increase with precisely zero mention of Ferguson effect, despite overwhelming consensus among criminologists that it has played a major role, or the election of Phillly's progressive prosecutor in 2016.
I annotated the graph
The reporters wrote 6 paragraphs on guns, even as they admit there's no evidence more guns caused more homicides, and zero on Ferguson effect, i.e, anti-police protests resulting in withdrawal of police and emboldenment of criminals
Milwaukee's progressive D.A. said the $1,000 bail that released a man who killed 6 at the Waukesha Christmas parade was "unacceptably low," but the D.A. diverted other homicidal criminals with low cash bails as recently as Nov 11 & 13
On November 11, Kenneth Burney was charged with four counts of attempted murder. Burney reportedly shot & wounded 3 police while he awaited trial for 'disorderly conduct with use of a dangerous weapon as a habitual criminality repeater and with domestic abuse assessments.'
Burney was reportedly released on a $1,000 signature bond in March. A signature bond does not require a defendant to deposit any money. It only asks for a promise to pay the bond if they fail to show up at trial.
At 1:24pm on Nov. 2, 13-year-old Drew Yurek called 911 to report an emergency: his father Will didn’t feel well and needed help. Medics arrived six minutes later, but were told by dispatch to wait for the police before entering.
There was a cautionary note that flagged the occupant of the address as being hostile to first responders. But the note was outdated, and referred to a previous tenant.
From lootings to homicides, America is in a crime wave. Why? Covid plays a role, but the underlying causes are demoralization of police, staff shortages, & emboldening criminals