Under District Attorney Chesa Boudin, San Francisco has become a haven for organized retail crime and repeat criminals. All it took for him to change his attitude was the looting of a Louis Vuitton store.
Emboldened by Boudin’s hands-off approach to crime, a group of thieves and vandals targeted San Francisco’s Union Square, which houses luxury stores such as Louis Vuitton and Bloomingdale’s. Video shows the thieves emptying the inventory of one of the stores.
The @LouisVuitton store at @UnionSquareSF “got emptied out,” says @yealenne. Broken glass litters the store. Most of the thieves got away in multiple cars… pic.twitter.com/VztNFMby2t
— Henry K. Lee (@henrykleeKTVU) November 20, 2021
This was apparently too much for Boudin. In his toughest stand on crime to date, he told criminals in a tweet not to “bring that noise” to San Francisco. He also added: “Standby for felony charges.”
I’m outraged by the looting in Union Square last night. We are seeing similar crimes across the country. I have a simple message: don’t bring that noise to our City.
Great work by SFPD.
Standby for felony charges.
— Chesa Boudin 博徹思 (@chesaboudin) November 20, 2021
Now that these crimes have shifted from pharmacies and small businesses to luxury stores, Boudin has finally decided to make some sort of stand. It certainly helps that he’s facing a recall campaign. But one sternly worded tweet won’t change months of what residents (and criminals) have seen: Boudin’s office routinely reduces or drops charges for criminals, including repeat offenders.
Whether Boudin is sincere in cracking down on this or he’s playing it up to try and stave off the recall, his tenure as district attorney has failed miserably. The Union Square robbery was a natural result of Boudin’s policies. His office helped create an environment that invites criminals to steal to their heart’s content. But this one happened to take place at a luxury store and was caught on camera. It’s more embarrassing for Boudin than it is a wake-up call.
Again, San Francisco residents and businesses only have two options. They can decide this is unacceptable and vote Boudin out of office, or they can decide this is what San Francisco will be and either live through it or move out. One would hope they have enough dignity to not accept brazen criminal acts because of vague slogans about criminal justice reform, but that hasn’t been true so far.
