San Francisco Police Arrest Shoplifters Allegedly Responsible for More Than $100,000 in Thefts

San Francisco police announced in a press release issued earlier today that they have arrested a “burglary ring” of four individuals who they say are responsible for more than $100,000 in multiple shoplifting incidents in both San Mateo County and San Francisco.

The affidavit goes into further detail about the case, revealing that the arrests occurred on Thursday. An officer reportedly spotted the suspects’ vehicle near the 3200 block of 20th Avenue, then arrested two suspects as they were being dropped off at a Daly City shopping center.

The vehicle then reportedly sped away, before later being found by authorities at the intersection of 16th and Bryant, where officers reportedly arrested the remaining two alleged assailants “without issue.”

A subsequent search found a firearm and an unknown amount of stolen property in the car, after which the car was towed away “for further investigation.”

The suspects, three San Francisco residents and one South San Francisco resident, have been turned over to Daly City police and are awaiting further proceedings.

Shoplifting has been a persistent problem in both San Francisco and California lately, but lawmakers and police have made significant efforts in recent months to address the problem.

Earlier this summer, San Francisco police announced they had made 61 arrests in a “blitz operation” centered around four Walgreens and Safeway locations in and around the city.

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday signed the last of 13 anti-crime bills that sparked a lengthy legislative dispute earlier this year over how exactly to address criminal justice reform given California’s past prison overcrowding crisis, a problem that stemmed from similar “tough on crime” bills passed in the 1980s and 1990s that disproportionately targeted communities of color.

Crime is generally on the agenda this year at the national, state and local levels, despite the lack of evidence of an increase in California compared to the first surge in 2022.

In San Francisco, Mark Farrell is positioning himself as the “law and order” candidate, challenging what he calls Mayor London Breed’s systematic failure to protect residents, even as crime in the city has actually dropped.

Proposition 36, a proposal to reclassify certain petty theft and drug offenses as misdemeanors, has become a hotly contested issue in the run-up to the November elections.

The vote pitted criminal justice groups and a slate of prominent Democratic lawmakers, including Governor Newsom, against a broad consortium of major retailers, police officers, Republican politicians and an assortment of liberal-aligned officials such as Mayor Breed and San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan.

Supporters, who have spent 10 times more money than their opponents, say the proposal is a reasonable attempt to address the ongoing fentanyl and theft problems in some parts of the state.

Opponents argue it would undo the substantial progress made in recent years in reducing prison overcrowding and return the state to a dark age of racist policing.

Donald Trump has also repeatedly used California’s alleged rising crime rate to attack Kamala Harris’ record as district attorney as he seeks re-election, despite available data suggesting otherwise.

A report from Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office found that the number of murders fell by nearly 16 percent last year. What’s more, the independent policy thinker California Budget and Policy Center found that crime rates as a whole are still less than half of what they were during their peak in the early 1990s.

Photo by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash