Easter Sunday looters take whatever they want from San Fran Walgreens with no resistance; cops arrive 4 hours later

A group of looters did not take the day off Easter Sunday and were caught on video taking whatever they pleased from a Walgreens store in San Francisco. As usual, no resistance was offered.

Image source: YouTube screenshot

Adding a little twist to what's become a commonplace crime in the city is that a producer from local TV news station KPIX recorded the mass shoplifting on his cellphone while he was out with his girlfriend, KPIX-TV reported.

"It was just like an ambush, basically," the producer, who didn't want to be named, told the station in regard to the afternoon ransacking inside the store on 9th and Market Streets. "It took me about three seconds to pull my phone out, ... and they just had no care at all."

Video caught at least seven individuals wearing hoodies and masks grabbing items off shelves and carrying away bags of merchandise, KPIX said.

The producer added to the station that the looters were "taking what they pleased with no regard for the law or those around them — [a] real-life smash and grab."

Image source: YouTube screenshot

He signaled how such crimes are no longer a surprise, saying in a kind of shoulder-shrugging tone that "it's San Francisco" before adding to KPIX that he's "kind of immune to it at this point."

The producer also told the station that store employees "did nothing" in the face of the looting — but that they're likely trained to exercise that response: "They're also probably immune to it. They're used to smash-and-grabs."

Oh, and while the crime happened around 4:30 p.m., KPIX said police didn't arrive until after 8:30 p.m. Police said the store was closed when they got there, and no one was present to report the incident, the station added.

KPIX said it wasn't clear why police responded some four hours later, and the station said it requested clarification from police and Walgreens about the response to the incident.

'You can grab and go as you please'

Sal, a vendor who regularly delivers to the Walgreens and other places, told KPIX he sees looting like this all the time: "They think it's a free-[for]-all. You can grab and go as you please."

Dina Miller has been living in the neighborhood for over a decade and shops at the Walgreens location almost daily on her way home, the station said — and she's just sad: "We don't really have any places to go shop anymore. Everything is closing down. … Walgreens are closing down all over the place, too."

Local security guard Eric Beverly who works nearby acknowledged to KPIX that rampant theft in the area had led to store closures: "It is a very difficult situation. A lot of bankruptcies, a lot of stores are foreclosing and taking precautions as far as marketing because of the theft here. It's very serious."

Matt Dorsey, a city supervisor, lives a few blocks from the Walgreens and shops there, the station said. After viewing cellphone video of the looting, he told KPIX police shortages are part of the problem, too.

"If we had a fully staffed police department, we could have a robbery unit that was doing more enforcement around places where retail theft plays out, holding more people accountable, and doing more to go after the fencing operations ... that make this lucrative," Dorsey noted to the station.

Image source: YouTube screenshot

More from KPIX:

Walgreens has closed at least 17 stores in San Francisco since 2019 and is among other large retailers to have closed up stores in the city or announced plans to close since the start of the pandemic. The last one to close was in February 2023 in the city's Financial District. Walgreens said the closure was "due to a significant decrease in foot traffic in the Financial District since the onset of the pandemic."

In April 2023, a person shoplifting from a Walgreens on Market and 4th Streets in San Francisco was confronted by an armed security guard and shot dead triggering weeks of protests. In July 2023, a Walgreens store in the city's Richmond District began padlocking its freezer section to thwart shoplifters.

Brazen shoplifters ransack San Francisco Walgreens storeyoutu.be

Anything else?

San Francisco indeed has seen an increase in crime for a number of years — and it just seems to get more and more brazen.

Even the city's far-left mayor, London Breed — who jumped on the "defund the police" bandwagon in 2020 after the death of George Floyd — made headlines for a speech she gave a year later in which she called out "bulls**t" crime "that has destroyed our city."

In February, outspoken NBA legend Charles Barkley shined a spotlight on San Francisco's "homeless crooks" during a live broadcast of the league's All-Star Game. As you might guess, his woke co-hosts pushed back with a vengeance.

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