CNN Reporter Robbed Multiple Times in SF Shines Unflattering Spotlight on California’s Crime Crisis
“Got robbed. Again. @jasonkCNN & I were at city hall in San Francisco to do an interview for @CNN.”
Umpteen stories about the crime crisis in San Francisco have been written just in the last month alone, with CBS News, NBC News, and the SF Chronicle among the numerous outlets interviewing frustrated residents and business owners alike who say they are at their wits’ end and that the city is failing them.
ABC 7 News has a crime tracker for Bay Area cities including San Francisco, and the stats don’t lie.
“Robberies over the last 12 months are up 5% compared to the annual average over the last three years, according to San Francisco Police Department data through March 12,” the site noted on the “robberies” tab as of this writing.
“Thefts over the last 12 months are up 12% compared to the annual average over the last three years, according to San Francisco Police Department data through March 12,” they also noted on the “thefts” tab.
While they indicated that burglaries were down 15%, their map shows three areas in San Francisco (“Southern,” “Central,” and “Northern”) where the crime rate is “higher than the citywide rate.”
Source: ABC 7 Crime Tracker as of 3-19-23.
CNN reporter Kyung Lah and producer Jason Kravarik traveled to San Francisco last week to interview residents about the crime problem there and voter discontent over the matter. But while there, the CNN crew were robbed multiple times according to Lah, who detailed their experience in a Twitter thread:
Our hired security guard tried to grab the crooks (I’m glad he didn’t get hurt!) but he got this picture of the getaway car.
To the jerks who stole our stuff— I hope someone on this site sees your plate and you get caught pic.twitter.com/k7VL0J9JHJ— Kyung Lah (@KyungLahCNN) March 17, 2023
Kravarik described the criminals in San Francisco as being “on another level” than what you normally see in the average city:
This guy risked his life to protect my belongings… we were covering how Asian San Franciscans are upset at crime and school issues… well we learned it first hand. Grateful that Quan was here for us, but these criminals are on another level in SF. pic.twitter.com/nmBWyDgUzS
— Jason Kravarik (@jasonkCNN) March 18, 2023
San Francisco is a beautiful city. This is our 3rd day here and I’ve loved my time here. But if you do visit this city, know that even with hired security watching your car, it is not enough. pic.twitter.com/Hi7UPSG5g5
— Kyung Lah (@KyungLahCNN) March 17, 2023
BTW; @jasonkCNN and I are in San Francisco doing a story about voter discontent bc of rampant street crime #irony
— Kyung Lah (@KyungLahCNN) March 17, 2023
“Bc so many people get their cars broken into and their bags stolen, @SouthwestAir was very used to my lack-of-ID problem and smoothly gave me my ticket after a brief security check. Off to TSA now,” Lah also wrote in a now-deleted (for an unknown reason) tweet.
In another, Lah also highlighted gas station “hits” in Oakland where luggage is routinely stolen:
OMG!!! My bag was recovered! (@jasonkCNN’s still missing). Perla w/@OCEIA_SF found my bag/biz cards & just rang me.
Happy to report SF residents are fighting for their city, like @OCEIA_SF. They’re a community safety patrol program, speaking 17 languages, run by residents— Kyung Lah (@KyungLahCNN) March 17, 2023
Last month, the San Francisco Standard described Oakland’s Airport Plaza as being “a thieves’ paradise.”
In another tweet that has since been deleted, Lah provided an update on her colleague’s bag:
“#Update! Bella Trattoria found @jasonkCNN bag. It was dumped near where more thieves were trying to break into a patron’s car. Computer was gone but his personal items were recovered.”
Restaurant staff told @jasonkCNN that they are angry with San Francisco crime and saw Jason’s “whole life” was in his bag. They had to search for his number and finally found a business card. SF is filled w/good, frustrated people who deserve better
— Kyung Lah (@KyungLahCNN) March 18, 2023
The full thread that includes the two deleted tweets can also be read here.
Sadly, some of the smash and grab robberies in San Francisco have led to murder:
Jen Angel, a beloved local bakery owner and social justice community activist, died on Thursday from injuries she suffered in a violent robbery, according to her close friends. She was 48.
[…]
On Monday, Angel was sitting inside her car behind a bank on Webster Street in Oakland when a thief broke into the car and grabbed her purse. The robber darted into a getaway vehicle that was waiting nearby, police said.
[…]
“The victim exited their vehicle and attempted to retrieve their stolen belongings from the individual. While the victim struggled for their belongings, they were knocked to the ground and sustained injuries,” the Oakland Police Department told KRON4.
Angel was dragged by the getaway car. The entire incident happened in broad daylight.
Though radical soft-on-crime DA Chesa Boudin was recalled by San Francisco voters last summer, the far-left city has a long way to go to make the city’s residents and business owners feel safe enough to stick around rather than flee to safer cities and states.
A good place to start would be to maybe stop electing woke politicians who prioritize things like reparations over getting tough on crime? Just a thought.
— Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via Twitter. —
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Comments
It’s been said. A new Republican is just a democrat that’s been mugged.
Not in California within say 100 miles of the coast. 1) Most of them sympathize with the thieves, and 2) Party registration and voting don’t matter because they can generate enough “ballots” to overwhelm any real votes cast.
Subotai Bahadur
Apparently, San Fran worked mighty hard to turn Grand Theft Auto into more than just a just a video game. Right, Nancy?
In 2014, Governor Jerry ‘moonbeam’ Brown(D) signed Prop 47 in to law. It made theft under $950 a misdemeanor, and by ‘unitended consequences’ (*wink *wink) created a de facto climate of rampant legalized theft which wokester Soros prosecutors refuse to prosecute.
Google “Shoplifting in San Francisco” and you will find more than 100,000 hits. Video sites are replete with cameras recording individual crooks and gangs, alike, descending upon a store like locusts to strip the shelves bare, then stroll out with impunity to strike another victim elsewhere.
Golly, this reads like a script for a Batman movie…
I was thinking a San Francisco remake of Robocop.
“Teams here in Oakland say passengers show up crying bc their bags are all stolen, all in seconds”
Reminds me of the first few page of Jack Vance’s short story, “The King of Thieves.”
A couple of generations ago, the saying was “Crime doesn’t pay”. With today’s criminal advocate prosecutors, crime pays rather well. To slow criminal activities down, there must be a downside.
Kyung Lah: Don’t you mean San Fransisco “WAS” a beautiful city. What is “beautiful” now? The urine smell? The homeless camps and people? The garbage? The crime? The people (high earners) fleeing? Tax’s? Cost of living (or dying}?
But reparations will fix everything in SF though ….right?
Martial law.
I always found it interesting that over time the Leftists managed to get all the military bases in the SF area closed down.
The Presido
NAS Alameda
Treasure Island
Mare Island
Hunters Point
Hamilton AFB
Oakland Army Base
Probably a few I missed.
How meaningful is that to the crime rate? Dunno but a heap of jobs went away when they closed.
I wouldn’t want to exercise liberal license to indulge diversity, but… karmic irony?
“SF is filled w/good, frustrated people who deserve better”. No they don’t. Not if they voted for this.
Or tolerate it.
Subotai Bahadur
“They’re a community safety patrol program, speaking 17 languages, run by residents…”
So, vigilantes? Gentrification enforcers — they’re doing block clearing, now? Or just posses taking the law into their own hands? Also, which languages, one wonders?
Do we have a running lynching count? Maybe scoreboards by team? The residents, and the entrepreneurs run their elimination tournaments, then the division winners square off.
Meanwhile, local broadcast calls the plays as they happen.
“Here’s the latest, boppers…”
“And here’s a tune going out to our friends: you know who you are. “Nowhere to run to; nowhere to hide.””
“Waaaarrrrr=iors. Come out and play-ayyyy.”
I await these thugs’ arrests Also visits from The Internal Poletzi, as organizing into neighborhood watch, purchase of gear including flashlights or first aid, calling around let alone “patrolling: — all terrorist indicators to be reported as we were informed in published guidance, never yet rescinded. (The only universal, absolute crime is trying to do for yourself, but I digress into theory.)
Hey, start with scraping their neighborhood watch rosters — everybody’s guilty for associating, and presumed worse.
/moar popcorn
It’s a good thing firearms are so strictly controlled there, or, someone might end up getting hurt.
That cop looks like he hasn’t even graduated high school yet. He definitely looks like he belongs in Demolition Man. Be well, John Spartan.
I was thinking more along the lines of Alfred E. Newman, Jr.
.
Clearly, CNN needs to be censored for this. They need to be reminded to adhere to the Party line: SF shows that MARXISM WORKS!!
Sure seems like their “Brave hired security guard” is in on the repeated thefts.
Not necessarily. If the laws in California are anything like the laws in Texas, private security officers are forbidden from taking any action whatever. All they can legally do is observe and report. If they act against the criminals in any way they can be legally charged with a crime and held civilly liable for injuries/damages.
I was licensed security in San Antonio for eight years…
From Kyung Lah’s tweet: “Now I’m about to try and get an @SouthwestAir
flight back to Los Angeles without ID or passport since they were both stolen. I’ll let you know how that goes…”
If you were stupid enough to leave them in your car in a high crime area instead of having them with you, I have no sympathy for you.
.
San Fransickens voted for this. Let them have it good and hard. I, personally, do not care.
passport? why would you eed your passport to fly domestically? strange
“Jen Angel, a beloved local bakery owner and social justice community activist, died on Thursday from injuries she suffered in a violent robbery” – she helped CAUSE this crime by social justice activism
What is the big picture?
Thinks of these events (increasing theft as a result of lowered definition of accountable “theft,” with lowered system interest in what is perceived as victimless crime (insurance will pay), and lack of criminal interdiction/enforcement resources (police and prosecution), presented here as illustrating a controlled demolition.
This is al similar to the way old buildings that are no longer desirable (economically/architecturally/functionally viable) are removed. You design a plan to destroy structural integrity of critical supporting structural elements in a controlled pattern so the building falls inward on it’s footprint.
Think of a CNN reporter from a large city sent to another large city to research an article about the theft problem in that other large city. It is clear that this reporter was either 1) ignorant of the environment she was going to, and/or she was unable to perform simple research and find meaningful information about the environment where she was going.
Some one in her home office (if it exists) should have given her a contact familiar with SF. I wonder if she feels used?
I laughed my ass off when I read about that. Kyung Lah, karma’s a bitch. Takes one to know one. LOL