On a late August night, a burglary occurred at a commercial building in the Mission District. The building’s surveillance video was viewed by Mission Station police officers and one officer recognized one of the suspects and actually knew exactly where he camped.
During daytime, undercover Mission police officers went to the suspect’s tent, which was located only about 700 feet from the burglarized building. The police officers recognized that the suspect was still wearing the same clothes he was seen wearing in the surveillance video. When the officers searched the suspect, they found 26 grams of methamphetamine in his pockets. (Was the suspect living in a tent because of the high cost of San Francisco rents or because it allowed him to afford meth with a street value of $1,000+?)
Rather than immediately search the suspect’s tent, the officers prepared a search warrant whereby a San Francisco judge authorized that there was a high probability this suspect was the burglar. Mission police officers used the judge’s approval to search the suspect’s tent and found items that the victim later confirmed were his.
Good work SFPD? Despite the fact that SFPD officers used the surveillance video to identify the suspect by name, and the suspect was still wearing the same clothes, District Attorney Chesa Boudin’s office found the surveillance video was insufficient to identify the suspect. Boudin’s attorneys deemed that because no DNA or fingerprints were found at the crime scene, they elected not to prosecute either the burglary or the methamphetamine crimes.
Boudin’s lack of prosecutions is fueling a burglary epidemic. Boudin’s term started with a 23% leap in robberies and upticks in burglaries and car break-ins. After the March 16th Covid-19 shutdown, with retail stores closing and tourists and rental cars disappearing, criminals transitioned to stealing cars, starting fires, and committing burglaries. Through the shutdown, as of September 1st, burglaries exploded up 57.6% over the same period last year. (Year-to-date homicides are up 33% under Boudin.)
So what is Boudin doing besides letting diligent police work go to waste? SFPD investigators are reporting that, when Boudin’s office can’t absolutely reject a solid SFPD case, his office is calling the victims and pressuring them to forgo prosecution in favor of “restorative justice.” That’s correct, the San Francisco DA’s office is soliciting victims and asking for an excuse not to do their jobs. The Street is highly aware of Boudin’s no-consequences prosecutorial policy and the price is a growing lawlessness and the compromised safety of our residents.
During the first 8-days of demonstrations in San Francisco, victims reported approximately 347 burglaries. From a public records request, I learned that SFPD arrested 117 suspects, but because SFPD does not tally the outcomes from the DA’s office, it is unknown the exact total of cases the District Attorney proceeds with or whether he proceeds on any cases.
One of those 117 arrests occurred just after midnight when SFPD officers caught a suspect in the act of burglarizing a retail business on Market Street. Good work SFPD? Nope, Boudin’s office released the suspect into the public.
On August 27th, per an SFPD News Release, that same Market Street suspect committed a more serious burglary in the Portola district. This time the victim was a juvenile girl at home by herself when she found the Market Street burglar “exposing himself and engaging in sexual gratification” in her living room. The burglar “approached the young girl in her bedroom, attempted to physically control her and block her escape.” The girl was able to escape the room and call her father who returned home and controlled the burglar until SFPD arrived.
Think about the lasting trauma imposed on this poor girl because of Boudin. Does she lose sleep at night? Does it affect her schoolwork? When she is in her living room does she relive the ordeal? Is she afraid to go outside by herself? Will this affect her future relationships with men?
As a child, Boudin was an indirect victim of a crime too. His parents conspired in the murder of two police officers and a security guard. Instead of being raised naturally by his parents, Boudin was adopted by other Weather Underground parents.
But somehow Boudin views his father as a victim and during his first 8-months as District Attorney, he has used every excuse to release criminals to the streets to avenge society for denying him a normal parental relationship. By doing so, he has incentivized criminal behavior and as a consequence created more victims like this young innocent girl.
Chesa, just as your father didn’t have to participate in the $1.6 million Brinks robbery, you didn’t have to cause the anguish this poor girl suffers. You are as much the cause of her trauma as the sexually deviant burglar you set free.
