Shoplifter Strolls Past CNN Reporter As She Profiles Rampant San Fran Crime

San Francisco’s crime scenario is so unhealthy that even CNN determined to shine a highlight on it — and whereas they had been taking pictures from the nation’s most-robbed Walgreens, a shoplifter casually walked by the reporter and digital camera with stolen merchandise. 

In reality, CNN’s Kyung Lah says she and her crew noticed three shoplifters in simply half-hour at a Walgreens in San Francisco’s Richmond District, which is bordered by Golden Gate Park and the Presidio. Among the corporate’s 9,000 US shops, that one is robbed probably the most — a median of 12 occasions a day.  

“In the 30 minutes we were at this Walgreens we watched three people, including this man, steal,” says Lah, because the accompanying video reveals a messy man with stringy hair and a winter jacket stroll proper out the shop with some sort of product in his arms. Turning to a cashier, she asks, “Did that guy pay?” The cashier replies with a easy “no.” Naturally, CNN protected the thief’s id by blurring his face. 

The explicit Walgreens featured within the story is identical one which garnered social media buzz earlier this month after putting in heavy chains and padlocks throughout the frozen meals coolers. 

NEW: The Walgreens at sixteenth/Geary in San Francisco has chained up the freezer part ⛓️

Workers mentioned usually shoplifters clear out all of the pizza and ice cream each night time. They’re often hit 20x a day. The entire retailer is nearly locked up. @KPIXtv

h/t @greenbergnation pic.twitter.com/lfFWmkLWdo

— Betty Yu (@bett_yu) July 18, 2023

Lah experiences that retailer employees, fed up with being ripped off a dozen occasions day by day, put in the extremely conspicuous chains and padlocks on their very own initiative. However, after the imagery was broadly shared throughout social and conventional media, Walgreen’s company management ordered the locks eliminated, apparently fearing the visuals would harm the corporate’s model greater than they’d underscore the more and more determined scenario for retailers in San Francisco and different crime-plagued cities. 

While the ugly {hardware} is gone, an astonishing proportion of the shop’s merchandise are behind locked plexiglass, from mustard to maple syrup to cough medication. At one other retailer, CNN confirmed frozen meals underneath cable locks, whereas the acquisition of merchandise like pretend eyelashes and lotion additionally requires asking an worker for assist.

In San Francisco, we went to the Walgreens that’s the #1 spot for theft in all of the 9000 US shops, per Walgreens. This is the place chains as soon as shut the freezer part. And we noticed 3 thefts proper in entrance of us. But throughout SF, espresso, mustard, nail polish– are all locked up: pic.twitter.com/IfYBVgpeI2

— Kyung Lah (@KyungLahCNN) July 25, 2023

CNN’s Lah additionally noticed floor espresso underneath lock and key. Asked for his perspective, a clueless buyer instructed her, “I don’t understand why coffee [would be locked up.] It’s become kind of like a police state in San Francisco.”  Of course, any rational observer would understand the locked-up espresso demonstrates San Francisco has turn into the reverse of a “police state,” as criminals steal property with utter impunity.  

California’s Prop 47 chummed the waters for shoplifters by making thefts of as much as $950 of merchandise a misdemeanor. Now, Sacramento legislators are working exhausting to make issues even worse: Last month, the state senate handed a invoice that might make it unlawful for retailer staff to confront thieves.

Hell-bent on wealth redistribution, it appears California’s Marxist rulers are as glad to allow it by particular person, legal acts as they’re by way of authorities packages.