Video footage was captured the moment a brazen robber filled a garbage bag with products at a San Francisco Walgreens and bicycled out of the store after no one tried to stop him.
The footage posted on Twitter by ABC7 Reporter Lyanne Melendez was filmed on Monday afternoon in a Walgreens at the corner of Gough and Fell streets in the Bay Area. The surge in shoplifting incidents arose almost immediately after the passage of a local law that downgraded the theft of property less than $950 in value from a felony charge to a misdemeanor in 2014.
“It’s hard for me as a journalist to say ‘I won’t be involved, I can’t get involved,’ I have to be sort of neutral, but this is also my city,” Melendez said, according to ABC7. “I live in this city and I see this constantly. Not only Walgreens, but cars, and my garage door has been broken into twice.”
In the past year and a half, Melendez said she’s witnessed three of these out-in-the-open shoplifting sprees at different Walgreens throughout San Francisco. Unable to justify profit-crushing theft, stores are closing in the city. “Seventeen Walgreens over the last five years, almost every Gap retail outlet is gone,” San Francisco Supervisor Ahsha Safai said.
Safai held a hearing in April on organized retail theft and said the district attorney and the police department need a much more coordinated response. “It might even involve a more aggressive effort when it comes to surveillance cameras, because you see the same individual hitting multiple locations. Then you can begin to have a deeper conversation about bringing multiple charges,” Safai said. Safai has given officials until mid-July to respond to his letter of inquiry on organized retail theft.
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ARTICLE: PAUL MURDOCH
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