15 ms·

California car burglaries are at crisis levels

119 points by nickgrosvenor 7y ago

blhack 7y ago
I know a lot of you guys all live in CA, and the bay area particularly. Just so you know: this stuff sounds like madness to an outsider reading the stories in this thread. If things are actually the way some of you are describing them, it sounds like SF particularly is about to collapse completely. Yikes. I can't imagine living there, much less having kids there.
- Zelphyr 7y ago
  I used to spend a lot of time out there between 2000 and 2008 and I loved it. The bay area had a charm to it and I loved just exploring the whole area. But now... I haven't been there in over 10 years but from what I'm hearing it sounds like a terrible place to visit, much less live. I really hope I'm wrong about that, or, at least they can turn things around. I'd like someday to take my kids there and show them the places I loved to visit.
  - tathougies 7y ago
    The geography and history of the bay area make it quite charming. However it would be a lot more charming if people could live there peacefully and without threat of violence. SF is living on charm borrowed from accidents of history and benevolence of the creator. At some point it'll have to be paid back
  - svachalek 7y ago
    It's mostly the same as ever, except (1) even more impossible for newcomers to get housing and (2) car break-ins are really at an insane level now. Everyone I know gets robbed once a year. As a visitor neither one is worth worrying about, just make it obvious there's nothing valuable in your car and don't park it anywhere too isolated.
- igammarays 7y ago
  Came here to say the same thing. Sounds like the Bay Area is going the way of South Africa. The normalcy with which residents talk about crime sounds like an apocalyptic movie, not real life.
- friedman23 7y ago
  As a recent transplant, it's as insane as it sounds.
- coreless 7y ago
  Yeah, don’t worry— it sounds like madness to insiders, too. The only real “crisis” about living in SF is the highest property values anywhere on earth mean you couldn’t actually live there if you wanted to. The Bay Area is, for better and for worse, the closest thing we have to a model of a progressive utopia. That means if the presence of things like homelessness, brown people, or property crime make you feel unsafe, you will feel less safe there than you will in Irvine, CA. On the other hand, if what brings you comfort is seeing your government focus on long-term, systemic inequities instead of trying to paint over the superficial consequences of the same, then SF will feel a little better to you — Oakland moreso — and in Irvine you will live in fear of being summarily executed by the Secret Police. It’s like... based on the stories, I’m shocked that Alabama is still civil and solvent, you know? Just different perspectives.
  - ageitgey 7y ago
    > The Bay Area is, for better and for worse, the closest thing we have to a model of a progressive utopia. That means if the presence of things like homelessness, brown people, or property crime make you feel unsafe, you will feel less safe there than you will in Irvine, CA. The thing about the Bay Area that is so frustrating is that other progressive cities in the world (mostly outside of the US) seem to do a much better job managing issues like homelessness, equality, property crime, access to education, etc, with less resources. So for people who love SF and want it to succeed as a progressive example, it's frustrating that it seems to fall short despite all that is invested. We want _effective_ solutions. SF has unique challenges, but very few people would say it has been trending in the right direction over the last 10 years. For example according to HUD's latest report, SF, Oakland/Berkeley and San Jose occupy _3 spots in the Top 5_ of US cities with the highest unsheltered homeless rates. NYC has way more individual homeless people than SF in total, but NYC shelters 95% of its homeless population and SF barely manages to shelter 20%. There are _more actual people_ sleeping on the streets of SF than NYC despite SF being a tiny city in comparison to NYC. It's absurd.
    - azinman2 7y ago
      Correct. The amount of money the city had to throw at these problems shows how the American way of spending their way to solutions isn’t enough. There’s zero attempt at being thoughtful and recognize what’s working (and why) — instead everything is a ballot initiative that’s voted on emotionally. It’s a total lack of leadership and quality of governance, which to me stems largely from years of capitalism mixed with reductions in government which has created a super powerful and motivated global private sector, and no civic pride and reasonable reward for those capable individuals to work for the public. We need to find a way to get our superstars in power, and not necessarily at the top only. We need a capable, civic-minded, and results-focused class of doer powering government. When the wage gap is 3-10x between private and public, and no culture of pride and civic engagement, this is what happens.
- for_the_many 7y ago
  You got it backwards. Madness is what happens outside of SF, where homelessness, poverty, drug usage, petty theft is criminalized. SF is a beacon of hope. We don't throw poor people in prison just because they had to break into a car to get money for their daily dose of crack. Hopefully drug usage will be completely legalized soon, and you'll be able to get your drugs from the corner grocery store, and if you are too poor to pay for them you'll get them for free. It's disgusting that in a city with so many billionaires people need to steal to make ends meet.
  - refurb 7y ago
    Save the sob story for another time. SFPD has said a number of times that most car thefts are due to criminal gangs.
    - for_the_many 7y ago
      People don't join criminal gangs because they life a nice life of luxury. It's the capitalist system which forces the "losers" to join a gang.
      - simonsarris 7y ago
        That's odd because when I look at non-capitalist countries like Venezuela on Wikipedia, there are lots of mentions of gangs. Actually, the gang activity is much larger and more violent. How sure are you capitalism is the thing to blame here? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Venezuela https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Venezuela
        DuskStar 7y ago
        Not to mention "look at this set of problems that the furthest to the left metro area in the US has! It must be the fault of CAPITALISM!" kind of falls apart when plenty of other metro areas in the US don't share those problems.
  - goobynight 7y ago
- rsync 7y ago
  "If things are actually the way some of you are describing them, it sounds like SF particularly is about to collapse completely." It's all very sensationalist - all of it. There are very small grains of truth (about needles and homeless and feces and car break-ins) that are spun out of all proportion. As a resident of the SFBA and somebody that spends a fair amount of time in, and all over, the city, I can confirm all of it[1] ... but at the same time, SF is quite nice overall and I repeatedly have complete, multi-day interactions in the city with zero dysfunction. [1] I have been the victim of one car break-in, I have had run-ins with people using the tenderloin as a toilet, etc.
  - mixedCase 7y ago
    > and I repeatedly have complete, multi-day interactions in the city with zero dysfunction. I will echo the poster you replied to you. The fact that you're celebrating that you've experienced more than a single day without seeing crime (in a 1st world country) sounds like madness to much of the rest of the world.
  - OstrichFarm 7y ago
    Honestly, I find this comment hilarious. Every time I've heard someone defending the Bay Area recently it sounds like utter normalization of the insane. You've been the victim of 'only' one car break-in yourself, have seen people shitting in the street, view the homeless and drug epidemic daily, and yet expect people to think these issues are overblown because they haven't happened for multiple days at points? As someone from the outside looking in, I truly hope the U.S. gets their shit together, because it's looking pretty bleak at this point.
    - asdff 7y ago
      When I lived in Columbus, Ohio, I too had my car broken into multiple times, saw shitting in the street, passed out drunks on the bus, screaming in the grocery store, the works. Of course, none of this happened in the WASPy burbs. The insane is in every city in the U.S., whether or not you find it during your daily life is another thing. It depends on whether you live in the rich city or the parallel working class city, and whether those two cities interface. In cities where the rich are well separated from the working class (most of the east where the rich live in suburbs separated by distances only traversable by private car due to chronically poor transit), homeless is ignored because it's never seen way out in the suburbs. In cities like the west cost and the few growing cities in the east, where rich people are moving into formerly working class inner city neighborhoods, of course there is now friction. The rich and working class cities are suddenly face each other directly and constantly, and the end result is the working class is pushed out as housing prices increase, or the rich leave again and it all collapses again. Take LA. Way more homeless. Yet you get neighborhoods like hancock park, smack dab in the middle of the city, where you will just not see any homeless people, because there is no reason for anyone working class to set foot in that neighborhood. You are priced out of housing and priced out of even lattes. It's a rich suburb full of mansions, you aren't gonna get much panhandling done and will stand out like a sore thumb to police and private security who love doing favors to nagging rich white women without jobs. But there are parts like downtown la, that used to have flophouses where drunks and addicts could actually rent housing. Or echo park that was a gangland in the 90s or a thriving working class latino community depending on whose reality you consult. Now 1brs cost 2k, the flophouses are bulldozed or renovated (or just get a new coat of paint), people commanding high salaries now interface with homeless and working class people and compete for the same apartments; the two cities merge in DTLA and echo park, as well as other neighborhoods in LA with increasing gentrification. NYC has the most homeless of anywhere, 90k, and nearly half a million more living in public housing below market rents, but you don't see homeless encampments because NYC builds shelters and housing without NIMBY fuss; something like 95% of homeless are housed in NYC. In any city you see these problems, and in cities with any semblance of demand that refuse to build supply to match, resulting in unaffordable housing for everyone not pulling >60k a year, you can see how this problem can grow exponentially larger. Never forget that the problem is present in every city, be it Columbus, NYC, LA, or Tulsa. The solutions are there and accepted in academic circles, but whether or not you see these solutions and their effect is directly reflective on the local political climate.
- mancerayder 7y ago
  These policies are taking the country by storm, because there's a new generation in town, and that generation feels strongly about the phrase, "criminal justice." In New York state, January 1, 2020 a set of law changes take effect that reclassify many crimes to misdemeanors, turn arrests into desk tickets, and help expunge records. They want to go further than that (eliminate cash bail, and more). It's not quite as bad as California, but it's getting there. In New York City specifically, the City Council / Mayor have in the past few years decriminalized quality-of-life crimes. In the (non-right-wing) press, they put it in quotes like this, "quality-of-life crimes" like it's some game, some ruse, or like quality of life is a meaningless sin or privileged pursuit. We should all suffer equally, is the implication. Meanwhile, the city has gotten noticeably less safe, with homeless people becoming more aggressive, open urinating / drug use (of the needle variety), and incidents inside the subway. There's nothing worse than being forced to take an underground car, being locked with other people, and having other people screaming schizophrenic fantasies, or walking back and forth trying to hustle for money. Every day. Twice a day. 30-50 minutes+. It's an enforced suffering. Guess what? If you're wealthy, you have a driver and/or you live near work, you live in a doorman building, and many other amenities. Dealing with street quality-of-life issues affects poor and middle-class people, which is what is personally so enraging about these so-called progressive ideals.
goatinaboat 7y ago
prosecutors prove a car’s doors were locked at the time of a break-in Weird law. Here in Wales if you leave it unlocked you might have a problem with your insurance but it’s still equally a crime.
- tomschlick 7y ago
  It's a crime everywhere else in the US too. California is pants on head stupid about this.
- JoeAltmaier 7y ago
  "eliminate a requirement that prosecutors prove a car’s doors were locked at the time of a break-in, has been shelved two years in a row" I lived in San Jose, left my crap car's doors unlocked because there was nothing in it. Still, the thief just broke the passenger window (without trying the door?) , opened the glove compartment, saw there was nothing in there, and moved on. So, not a crime I guess. Yay California. I don't live there anymore.
  - knute 7y ago
    Based on the anecdote in the story, you should always break the window without trying the door, because if you're on video trying and failing to open the door, that's evidence the door was locked and they can prosecute you. Talk about perverse incentives.
- buckminster 7y ago
  The article makes little sense. It says “It’s ridiculous that under current law you can have a video of someone bashing out a car window, but if you can’t prove that the door is locked you may not be able to get an auto burglary conviction" So what? Surely you can still get a conviction for criminal damage (as it's called in the UK) or theft?
  - goblin89 7y ago
    Apparently now in California it’s a misdemeanor if car’s broken window is worth less than $950.
empath75 7y ago
>“With approximately 70 auto burglaries a day” That doesn’t seem like a crisis in a city the size of San Francisco.
- httpsterio 7y ago
  San Fran has rougly 800k people and assuming that 70 cars gets stolen a day and everyone there has a car, that's a 3% chance that your car will get stolen within a year. This doesn't obviously address the issue that I doubt there's even 400k cars there which more than doubles the likelyhood. That's not nothing, it's over 25k stolen cars in a year and an enormous burden on the local police force.
  - stefan_ 7y ago
    3%? That seems fine, lock your bike to a light post and keep it overnight, I estimate the likelihood it's going to be stolen at 100%. Of course, with both cars and bikes, police have much more important to do. That's the invariant: whatever the crime, there is surely something more worthy of their attention out there, so nothing is ever done.
    - negrit 7y ago
      What kind of argument is that, its not a race to the bottom...
      - michaelscott 7y ago
        Don't think parent is making an argument, just an observation. From personal experience where I live, most people wouldn't bother to even report a stolen bicycle or broken car window because there's so much more serious crime (gang violence etc) that police will inevitably treat your "petty" case as less important. It's terrible, but it's just the way of things in some places.
    - brewdad 7y ago
      Want to solve more car break-in and bike theft cases? Authorize the police to roll the helicopters and armored personnel carriers to catch suspects. We've bought police all these toys and their not going to want to work a case unless they get to use them. I'm only half-joking.
habnds 7y ago
I've always left nothing in the car and the doors unlocked in the hope that my windows won't be broken. Not SF but I once had the cup holder/ashtray stolen from an old mini van I was driving, I assume because it had a few dollars in change in the ash tray. More amusing than anything. Cars are terrible for cities, doesn't bother me in the least that protecting tourist's cameras isn't an enforcement priority. > Tourists are disproportionately targeted because they are more likely to have valuables in their cars
- macinjosh 7y ago
  > Cars are terrible for cities, doesn't bother me in the least that protecting tourist's cameras isn't an enforcement priority. What a flippant and short sighted thing to say. I've known people whose car was broken into and had their medical devices, medication, and clothes stolen. That's more of a problem than a tourist's camera. Regardless of your opinion on car transportation in cities the idea that victims of a crime should take the blame because they left something valuable in their car and locked it is the same as saying a rape victim is at fault for the crime because of what they were wearing. It is pretty sickening.
  - goblin89 7y ago
    Any crime is inherently evaluated as “worse” or “better” than another crime under most judicial systems, which is reflected in sentences and in allocation of police resources. One can express their agreement with current allocation of resources without blaming victims for the crime, can’t they? To me, as to someone who knows a rape victim, likening car burglary to rape sounds much more horrific than that. Did victim-blaming get edited out of the comment you were replying to after your post?
    - macinjosh 7y ago
      I see your point. To me, victim blaming was implied by implying tourists having their camera's stolen don't deserve help because they aren't street smart in SF. I am not saying police shouldn't allocate resources to 'worse' crimes but we shouldn't also say it is the tourist victim's fault (e.g. "They should've known better!". I think that's a slippery slope that is best avoided. I may have read too deeply into the intent behind that comment though.
cft 7y ago
San Francisco DA elect: Boudin was born in New York City.[1] His parents, Kathy Boudin and David Gilbert, were Weather Underground members.[2] When Boudin was 14 months old, his parents were arrested for their role as getaway car drivers in the Brink's robbery of 1981 in Rockland County, New York.[1][3] His mother was sentenced to 20 years to life[4] and his father to 75 years to life for the felony murders of two police officers and a security guard.[5] After his parents were incarcerated, Boudin was raised in Chicago by adoptive parents Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, who, like his parents, were members of the Weather Underground.[6] Kathy Boudin was released under parole supervision in 2003.[3][7] Boudin descends from a long left-wing lineage. His great-great-uncle, Louis B. Boudin,[8] was a Marxist theoretician and author of a two-volume history of the Supreme Court's influence on American government, and his grandfather Leonard Boudin was an attorney who represented controversial clients such as Fidel Castro and Paul Robeson.[9] Boudin is also related to Michael Boudin,[8] a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, and I.F. Stone, an independent journalist.[8][10] Before law school, Boudin traveled to Venezuela and served as a translator in the administration of then-president Hugo Chávez.[12] After law school, from 2011-2012,
- matt4077 7y ago
  Are you seriously judging someone by their great-great-uncle's book? And why are you including a relative being a Appeals Court judge, and an independent journalist? Is "independent journalist" a code for something?
  - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
    >Are you seriously judging someone by their great-great-uncle's book? Not the person you're referring to but barring exceptional circumstances the apple can only fall so far from the tree. That said, I don't see why being raised by a family full of super hardcore leftists has more than a passing impact on his politics wrt petty crime specifically. He could just as well have fallen on the "we should go hard on petty crime because it undermines social cohesion and respect for the rules of the state" side of things (obviously that's not how he turned out for reasons that are well documented but you get the point).
Shivetya 7y ago
Proposition 47 is the real bugaboo, it moved from felony to misdemeanor thefts under $950 which includes damage caused by them. this made breaking into cars pretty much a free pass because window damage rarely could exceed that. becoming a misdemeanor meant cops have no real reason to follow up. throw in the requirement to prove the doors are locked, well its easy to understand however the real dishonesty is from Lorena Gonzalez (D-San Diego) who claims a bill to at least remove the requirement for prosecutors prove a car was locked before being broken into based on costs. As in, they are very willing to pass the costs onto individuals; hence there still is a cost but to government it does not occur unless on their books. As it was pointed out, how is it never a crime to enter a vehicle you do not own without permission? Prop 47 lead to an increase in shop lifting because it set the limit high enough that it basically insured no one would get prosecuted. the common method is to send a bunch of people into a store at one time to get the goods in volume but with each individual being under the limit in monetary value if being young enough prosecution won't work either
- mc32 7y ago
  At a local Safeway woman loads cart with bottles of liquor. Walks out. She yells “I know my rights, I know my rights”. What are the cashiers and security going to do? Nothing, they let her go. At another place kids get caught stealing they turn over a display and run out. Again, nothing done. All those costs are borne by the paying customers. People are gonna get sick of it; the progressive supes are gonna rue this move. The DA race in SF was close. I think it’s gonna go the other way next election. Also word on the street is apparently thieves prefer SF to Daly City because San Mateo county doesn’t play as nice as SF.
  - StuffedParrot 7y ago
    I believe what you’re describing is nation wide and doesn’t have anything to do with SF.
    - mc32 7y ago
      It’s the frequency and brazenness of the crimes that’s out of line with respect to other stats.
yalogin 7y ago
So a car is not considered personal property if it’s parked on the street? I thought me taking someone else’s property is illegal, isn’t it? Say I swiped your wallet, it’s obviously not locked in your pocket and you are on the street next to your car. Will I be prosecuted or not?
- StuffedParrot 7y ago
  The arrest rate for car breakin in SF is 2%, let alone prosecution. What’s your suggestion for raising that rate—hire a cop for every car in the city?
  - sansnomme 7y ago
    This is precisely the sort of policy that drives development and acceptance of mass surveillance software. What exactly do you think a city of technologists is going to do when driven against a wall, stuck between trying to appear progressive and chronic material loss of personal property? It just takes one wrong middle manager to have a bad day and their car broken into before a certain cloud computing company decides that their smart surveillance doorbells can easily be adapted as car cams.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  - tomschlick 7y ago
    The police don't arrest people when they know the DA is going to drop the charges immediately and their superiors are going to ask why they are wasting their time. This is entirely driven by the political atmosphere there where the DA would rather "its not really a crime" narrative than to prosecute and possibly face criticism from the progressive populace.
    - StuffedParrot 7y ago
      I don’t see anyone “progressive” arguing for not prosecuting people who break into cars, or not looking for them, or deprioritizing them. This is hardly a polarizing viewpoint. It’s just a useful dog whistle for certain styles of law and order conservatism. There IS a progressive effort to prioritize moving forward with felony charges over misdemeanors. Perhaps you got confused?
samcday 7y ago
Fun anecdote. I was living/working in San Francisco a couple of years ago. It was 10am on a work day. I was walking towards my office, along Folsom coming from the 101 towards 8th. Out of nowhere a guy just walks up to one of the cars parked on the street, smashes the rear window, and starts taking whatever was inside. There was several homeless people nearby just casually observing it, along with myself. The perpetrator clearly gave zero fucks and undertook the whole thing as casually as one might stop to tie their shoe on the street. It was a little surreal, and I was already desensitized to the ... interesting characteristics of SoMa streets by that point.
- webninja 7y ago
  I saw a similar surreal thing in San Fransisco. I was in the back left seat of a Lyft when I saw a man who appeared to be homeless walk up to a parked car on the side of the road. The traffic light was red so we were stopped with several cars in front of and behind us. The man peered into the windows, picked up his skateboard and bashed the back left side window of the car. He started pull out a non-descript black suitcase. The hole wasn’t big enough, so he had to bash the window more. I’m stunned as he’s doing this and I said aloud “Is he breaking into that car?”. “...Yeah he is.” - The Lyft driver cautiously replied. He got on his skateboard and casually skated away with the black suitcase. What can you do when that happens? The cops don’t accept picture text messages yet. Can you just shoot these burglars on sight or do they have to be on your private property for that?
  - samcday 7y ago
    > Can you just shoot these burglars on sight or do they have to be on your private property for that? No idea about the law, but I would hope you value human life more than a stolen black suitcase.
skindog 7y ago
Easy solution, break into the cars of the lawmakers.
- macinjosh 7y ago
  Agreed, though I have a feeling those cases would be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
  - gambiting 7y ago
    So....they would also hit a dead wall of having to prove the car was locked at the time when it was broken into? Because that's the crux of the issue here.
    - heimatau 7y ago
      I'm sure the 'crime' will be put under a different part of the law. I.e. Attacking a public official's property. They have different laws for them. Wouldn't change a thing.
xwdv 7y ago
This is why vehicles like the cybertruck are increasingly needed. If the government has failed to protect us and our property, then we need to have more hardened property and take matters into our own hands.
- hodder 7y ago
  Just as long as the burglars don't hit the window with a gently lofted marble right?
  - chacha2 7y ago
    Didn't go through!
BatFastard 7y ago
As someone who has lived in a major city for the last 30 years there is just ONE rule. Leave nothing in your car and leave the doors unlocked. Leaving the door unlocked is the rule I adopted after a break in 30 years ago when only one of my doors was locked, and of course that window was broken!
- ironmagma 7y ago
  Sadly, this is not sufficient in SF. Many people have gotten so desperate as to hang posters that send the message to potential thieves: “please don’t break my window, there is nothing valuable in this car.” I’d say there’s far more than just one rule.
  - BatFastard 7y ago
    What other rules would you suggest?
    - ironmagma 7y ago
      I'm not sure the premise is sound -- that there is a set of rules that if you abide by them, you won't have a car burglarized. Well, besides one that includes "don't have a car," at least. What says that there must be such a set? It seems essentially unavoidable, in San Francisco.
  - sershe 7y ago
    When I was loading my car in SF to move out of SF (back to Seattle, not much of an improvement unfortunately) I left a note saying "I am loading the car, I am nearby and if I see you I will run out and kick your face in". I saw a homeless person check out the car (with lots of visible boxes already in it) and just walk by.
- leetcrew 7y ago
  this strategy just trades one risk for another. you're less likely to have your windows smashed, but more likely to find someone sleeping in your car in the morning. I'd rather deal with shattered glass than bodily excretions, personally.
Zelphyr 7y ago
This strikes me as such an odd law. Does CA feel the same about houses? Can one go break into a house and get away with it if the homeowner can't prove the doors were locked? I suspect not and, so, if not, why not? What was the impetus for such a law to begin with? Was there a rash of people leaving their cars unlocked and some politician decided it "serves them right" for getting broken into? The questions abound!
- svachalek 7y ago
  This year someone broke into my car in my driveway, got the garage door opener, opened the garage, stole some things there, opened the door into the house from the garage since we didn't habitually lock it back then, stole some things from the common areas while we slept in the bedrooms, then left a small pile of inferior loot from other stops in our front yard, some with nametags still on it. While I credit the police for showing up and putting a minor effort into investigating it, they were certainly not taking pictures and fingerprints and all the stuff you expect from TV. The attitude was mostly "eh, teenagers get up to bad stuff, make sure to lock your doors."
macinjosh 7y ago
For all those out there that applauded Prop 47 that helped lead to this mess let me tell you a story of how this law leads to more inequality not less. A single mother working 2 minimum wage jobs in different parts of the city uses her car to travel to work. She basically lives in her car so she must keep belongings she will need in there. While working her first shift for the day her car is broken into. Her bag with her uniform for her second shift is stolen along with everything else. The cops tell her that the damage to her 20 year old used car's window and the items stolen add up to less than $950 so they can't do much of anything for her. Meanwhile, across town, a rich tech elite's high end electric car is broken into and some valuable electronics are stolen. The damage and theft adds up to well over $950 so the police are able to investigate. At the end of the day the tech elite orders replacement electronics with next day prime delivery and has their assistant work on repairing the window. The single mother gets fired from her second job for not having the appropriate attire. Great work California.
- coreless 7y ago
  I don’t think your progressive Californian would disagree at all that that story is a shock to the conscience, or that California must change to stop that from happening. We’d disagree a lot about what the biggest problem in the story is, though.
- sharkmerry 7y ago
  Is there an article on this story?
- generalpass 7y ago
  An additional angle is that the state is well and truly out of money and running out of lenders, yet continues to see the number of poor and their related costs increase. One way to offset growth in welfare expenses might be to permit poor people some way to directly steal with impunity, thus they can still somehow be fed, while simultaneously reducing attendant enforcement costs and prison populations.
  - azinman2 7y ago
BurningFrog 7y ago
Conspiracy theory: Allowing rampant car theft is yet another way rich San Franciscans - who can afford both indoor parking and new windows a few times a year - keep the non millionaire rabble away from the city.
- yellowapple 7y ago
  Well it's working, because as one member of that non-millionaire rabble, after moving here a year ago I desire nothing less than to move right back out.
egdod 7y ago
San Francisco is becoming a third world shithole, but with first world rent prices. Why would anyone choose to live there? Do people enjoy stepping in human feces and getting their cars stolen?
- thorwasdfasdf 7y ago
  there's no choice. that's where all the jobs are. software companies were incentivized to go to SF many years ago by the mayor/tax breaks then, which seems kinda corrupt, or at least misrepresenting the will of the people: most SF residents don't want tech companies there in the first place.
russellbeattie 7y ago
Numbers. How many suspects are actually set free because of this law? I suspect very few, and this is just a way to vilify those who want to look out for the working class and those in poverty. If lawmakers really want to solve car thefts, they need to look at the systemic economic problems that cause the need for such theft to occur, not look for more ways to put poor people in jail.
mensetmanusman 7y ago
Wait, was this the reason the cybertruck had a glass breaking demo?
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
subsaharancoder 7y ago
San Francisco is basically Gotham city without Batman and City hall is Arkham Asylum. The newly elected DA is bound to make it worse as he focuses on decriminalizing all non-violent crimes. In the words of my Uncle "You made your bed, now you must sleep in it.."
rrauenza 7y ago
There’s a YouTube channel Gas Station Encounters that videos shop lifters in their store in order to publicly shame them. They began publishing their videos out of frustration. Besides being pretty funny, it gives you some perspective on the people who shoplift with no shame. Link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWAhPpdcWedLgaB1KJEvfqA https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWAhPpdcWedLgaB1KJEvfqA

119 points by nickgrosvenor 7y ago

I know a lot of you guys all live in CA, and the bay area particularly. Just so you know: this stuff sounds like madness to an outsider reading the stories in this thread. If things are actually the way some of you are describing them, it sounds like SF particularly is about to collapse completely. Yikes. I can't imagine living there, much less having kids there.

Zelphyr 7y ago
I used to spend a lot of time out there between 2000 and 2008 and I loved it. The bay area had a charm to it and I loved just exploring the whole area. But now... I haven't been there in over 10 years but from what I'm hearing it sounds like a terrible place to visit, much less live. I really hope I'm wrong about that, or, at least they can turn things around. I'd like someday to take my kids there and show them the places I loved to visit.
- tathougies 7y ago
  The geography and history of the bay area make it quite charming. However it would be a lot more charming if people could live there peacefully and without threat of violence. SF is living on charm borrowed from accidents of history and benevolence of the creator. At some point it'll have to be paid back
- svachalek 7y ago
  It's mostly the same as ever, except (1) even more impossible for newcomers to get housing and (2) car break-ins are really at an insane level now. Everyone I know gets robbed once a year. As a visitor neither one is worth worrying about, just make it obvious there's nothing valuable in your car and don't park it anywhere too isolated.
igammarays 7y ago
Came here to say the same thing. Sounds like the Bay Area is going the way of South Africa. The normalcy with which residents talk about crime sounds like an apocalyptic movie, not real life.
friedman23 7y ago
As a recent transplant, it's as insane as it sounds.
coreless 7y ago
Yeah, don’t worry— it sounds like madness to insiders, too. The only real “crisis” about living in SF is the highest property values anywhere on earth mean you couldn’t actually live there if you wanted to. The Bay Area is, for better and for worse, the closest thing we have to a model of a progressive utopia. That means if the presence of things like homelessness, brown people, or property crime make you feel unsafe, you will feel less safe there than you will in Irvine, CA. On the other hand, if what brings you comfort is seeing your government focus on long-term, systemic inequities instead of trying to paint over the superficial consequences of the same, then SF will feel a little better to you — Oakland moreso — and in Irvine you will live in fear of being summarily executed by the Secret Police. It’s like... based on the stories, I’m shocked that Alabama is still civil and solvent, you know? Just different perspectives.
- ageitgey 7y ago
  > The Bay Area is, for better and for worse, the closest thing we have to a model of a progressive utopia. That means if the presence of things like homelessness, brown people, or property crime make you feel unsafe, you will feel less safe there than you will in Irvine, CA. The thing about the Bay Area that is so frustrating is that other progressive cities in the world (mostly outside of the US) seem to do a much better job managing issues like homelessness, equality, property crime, access to education, etc, with less resources. So for people who love SF and want it to succeed as a progressive example, it's frustrating that it seems to fall short despite all that is invested. We want _effective_ solutions. SF has unique challenges, but very few people would say it has been trending in the right direction over the last 10 years. For example according to HUD's latest report, SF, Oakland/Berkeley and San Jose occupy _3 spots in the Top 5_ of US cities with the highest unsheltered homeless rates. NYC has way more individual homeless people than SF in total, but NYC shelters 95% of its homeless population and SF barely manages to shelter 20%. There are _more actual people_ sleeping on the streets of SF than NYC despite SF being a tiny city in comparison to NYC. It's absurd.
  - azinman2 7y ago
    Correct. The amount of money the city had to throw at these problems shows how the American way of spending their way to solutions isn’t enough. There’s zero attempt at being thoughtful and recognize what’s working (and why) — instead everything is a ballot initiative that’s voted on emotionally. It’s a total lack of leadership and quality of governance, which to me stems largely from years of capitalism mixed with reductions in government which has created a super powerful and motivated global private sector, and no civic pride and reasonable reward for those capable individuals to work for the public. We need to find a way to get our superstars in power, and not necessarily at the top only. We need a capable, civic-minded, and results-focused class of doer powering government. When the wage gap is 3-10x between private and public, and no culture of pride and civic engagement, this is what happens.
for_the_many 7y ago
You got it backwards. Madness is what happens outside of SF, where homelessness, poverty, drug usage, petty theft is criminalized. SF is a beacon of hope. We don't throw poor people in prison just because they had to break into a car to get money for their daily dose of crack. Hopefully drug usage will be completely legalized soon, and you'll be able to get your drugs from the corner grocery store, and if you are too poor to pay for them you'll get them for free. It's disgusting that in a city with so many billionaires people need to steal to make ends meet.
- refurb 7y ago
  Save the sob story for another time. SFPD has said a number of times that most car thefts are due to criminal gangs.
  - for_the_many 7y ago
    People don't join criminal gangs because they life a nice life of luxury. It's the capitalist system which forces the "losers" to join a gang.
    - simonsarris 7y ago
      That's odd because when I look at non-capitalist countries like Venezuela on Wikipedia, there are lots of mentions of gangs. Actually, the gang activity is much larger and more violent. How sure are you capitalism is the thing to blame here? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Venezuela https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Venezuela
      - DuskStar 7y ago
        Not to mention "look at this set of problems that the furthest to the left metro area in the US has! It must be the fault of CAPITALISM!" kind of falls apart when plenty of other metro areas in the US don't share those problems.
- goobynight 7y ago
rsync 7y ago
"If things are actually the way some of you are describing them, it sounds like SF particularly is about to collapse completely." It's all very sensationalist - all of it. There are very small grains of truth (about needles and homeless and feces and car break-ins) that are spun out of all proportion. As a resident of the SFBA and somebody that spends a fair amount of time in, and all over, the city, I can confirm all of it[1] ... but at the same time, SF is quite nice overall and I repeatedly have complete, multi-day interactions in the city with zero dysfunction. [1] I have been the victim of one car break-in, I have had run-ins with people using the tenderloin as a toilet, etc.
- mixedCase 7y ago
  > and I repeatedly have complete, multi-day interactions in the city with zero dysfunction. I will echo the poster you replied to you. The fact that you're celebrating that you've experienced more than a single day without seeing crime (in a 1st world country) sounds like madness to much of the rest of the world.
- OstrichFarm 7y ago
  Honestly, I find this comment hilarious. Every time I've heard someone defending the Bay Area recently it sounds like utter normalization of the insane. You've been the victim of 'only' one car break-in yourself, have seen people shitting in the street, view the homeless and drug epidemic daily, and yet expect people to think these issues are overblown because they haven't happened for multiple days at points? As someone from the outside looking in, I truly hope the U.S. gets their shit together, because it's looking pretty bleak at this point.
  - asdff 7y ago
    When I lived in Columbus, Ohio, I too had my car broken into multiple times, saw shitting in the street, passed out drunks on the bus, screaming in the grocery store, the works. Of course, none of this happened in the WASPy burbs. The insane is in every city in the U.S., whether or not you find it during your daily life is another thing. It depends on whether you live in the rich city or the parallel working class city, and whether those two cities interface. In cities where the rich are well separated from the working class (most of the east where the rich live in suburbs separated by distances only traversable by private car due to chronically poor transit), homeless is ignored because it's never seen way out in the suburbs. In cities like the west cost and the few growing cities in the east, where rich people are moving into formerly working class inner city neighborhoods, of course there is now friction. The rich and working class cities are suddenly face each other directly and constantly, and the end result is the working class is pushed out as housing prices increase, or the rich leave again and it all collapses again. Take LA. Way more homeless. Yet you get neighborhoods like hancock park, smack dab in the middle of the city, where you will just not see any homeless people, because there is no reason for anyone working class to set foot in that neighborhood. You are priced out of housing and priced out of even lattes. It's a rich suburb full of mansions, you aren't gonna get much panhandling done and will stand out like a sore thumb to police and private security who love doing favors to nagging rich white women without jobs. But there are parts like downtown la, that used to have flophouses where drunks and addicts could actually rent housing. Or echo park that was a gangland in the 90s or a thriving working class latino community depending on whose reality you consult. Now 1brs cost 2k, the flophouses are bulldozed or renovated (or just get a new coat of paint), people commanding high salaries now interface with homeless and working class people and compete for the same apartments; the two cities merge in DTLA and echo park, as well as other neighborhoods in LA with increasing gentrification. NYC has the most homeless of anywhere, 90k, and nearly half a million more living in public housing below market rents, but you don't see homeless encampments because NYC builds shelters and housing without NIMBY fuss; something like 95% of homeless are housed in NYC. In any city you see these problems, and in cities with any semblance of demand that refuse to build supply to match, resulting in unaffordable housing for everyone not pulling >60k a year, you can see how this problem can grow exponentially larger. Never forget that the problem is present in every city, be it Columbus, NYC, LA, or Tulsa. The solutions are there and accepted in academic circles, but whether or not you see these solutions and their effect is directly reflective on the local political climate.
mancerayder 7y ago
These policies are taking the country by storm, because there's a new generation in town, and that generation feels strongly about the phrase, "criminal justice." In New York state, January 1, 2020 a set of law changes take effect that reclassify many crimes to misdemeanors, turn arrests into desk tickets, and help expunge records. They want to go further than that (eliminate cash bail, and more). It's not quite as bad as California, but it's getting there. In New York City specifically, the City Council / Mayor have in the past few years decriminalized quality-of-life crimes. In the (non-right-wing) press, they put it in quotes like this, "quality-of-life crimes" like it's some game, some ruse, or like quality of life is a meaningless sin or privileged pursuit. We should all suffer equally, is the implication. Meanwhile, the city has gotten noticeably less safe, with homeless people becoming more aggressive, open urinating / drug use (of the needle variety), and incidents inside the subway. There's nothing worse than being forced to take an underground car, being locked with other people, and having other people screaming schizophrenic fantasies, or walking back and forth trying to hustle for money. Every day. Twice a day. 30-50 minutes+. It's an enforced suffering. Guess what? If you're wealthy, you have a driver and/or you live near work, you live in a doorman building, and many other amenities. Dealing with street quality-of-life issues affects poor and middle-class people, which is what is personally so enraging about these so-called progressive ideals.

goatinaboat 7y ago

prosecutors prove a car’s doors were locked at the time of a break-in Weird law. Here in Wales if you leave it unlocked you might have a problem with your insurance but it’s still equally a crime.

tomschlick 7y ago
It's a crime everywhere else in the US too. California is pants on head stupid about this.
JoeAltmaier 7y ago
"eliminate a requirement that prosecutors prove a car’s doors were locked at the time of a break-in, has been shelved two years in a row" I lived in San Jose, left my crap car's doors unlocked because there was nothing in it. Still, the thief just broke the passenger window (without trying the door?) , opened the glove compartment, saw there was nothing in there, and moved on. So, not a crime I guess. Yay California. I don't live there anymore.
- knute 7y ago
  Based on the anecdote in the story, you should always break the window without trying the door, because if you're on video trying and failing to open the door, that's evidence the door was locked and they can prosecute you. Talk about perverse incentives.
buckminster 7y ago
The article makes little sense. It says “It’s ridiculous that under current law you can have a video of someone bashing out a car window, but if you can’t prove that the door is locked you may not be able to get an auto burglary conviction" So what? Surely you can still get a conviction for criminal damage (as it's called in the UK) or theft?
- goblin89 7y ago
  Apparently now in California it’s a misdemeanor if car’s broken window is worth less than $950.

empath75 7y ago

>“With approximately 70 auto burglaries a day” That doesn’t seem like a crisis in a city the size of San Francisco.

httpsterio 7y ago
San Fran has rougly 800k people and assuming that 70 cars gets stolen a day and everyone there has a car, that's a 3% chance that your car will get stolen within a year. This doesn't obviously address the issue that I doubt there's even 400k cars there which more than doubles the likelyhood. That's not nothing, it's over 25k stolen cars in a year and an enormous burden on the local police force.
- stefan_ 7y ago
  3%? That seems fine, lock your bike to a light post and keep it overnight, I estimate the likelihood it's going to be stolen at 100%. Of course, with both cars and bikes, police have much more important to do. That's the invariant: whatever the crime, there is surely something more worthy of their attention out there, so nothing is ever done.
  - negrit 7y ago
    What kind of argument is that, its not a race to the bottom...
    - michaelscott 7y ago
      Don't think parent is making an argument, just an observation. From personal experience where I live, most people wouldn't bother to even report a stolen bicycle or broken car window because there's so much more serious crime (gang violence etc) that police will inevitably treat your "petty" case as less important. It's terrible, but it's just the way of things in some places.
  - brewdad 7y ago
    Want to solve more car break-in and bike theft cases? Authorize the police to roll the helicopters and armored personnel carriers to catch suspects. We've bought police all these toys and their not going to want to work a case unless they get to use them. I'm only half-joking.

habnds 7y ago

I've always left nothing in the car and the doors unlocked in the hope that my windows won't be broken. Not SF but I once had the cup holder/ashtray stolen from an old mini van I was driving, I assume because it had a few dollars in change in the ash tray. More amusing than anything. Cars are terrible for cities, doesn't bother me in the least that protecting tourist's cameras isn't an enforcement priority. > Tourists are disproportionately targeted because they are more likely to have valuables in their cars

macinjosh 7y ago
> Cars are terrible for cities, doesn't bother me in the least that protecting tourist's cameras isn't an enforcement priority. What a flippant and short sighted thing to say. I've known people whose car was broken into and had their medical devices, medication, and clothes stolen. That's more of a problem than a tourist's camera. Regardless of your opinion on car transportation in cities the idea that victims of a crime should take the blame because they left something valuable in their car and locked it is the same as saying a rape victim is at fault for the crime because of what they were wearing. It is pretty sickening.
- goblin89 7y ago
  Any crime is inherently evaluated as “worse” or “better” than another crime under most judicial systems, which is reflected in sentences and in allocation of police resources. One can express their agreement with current allocation of resources without blaming victims for the crime, can’t they? To me, as to someone who knows a rape victim, likening car burglary to rape sounds much more horrific than that. Did victim-blaming get edited out of the comment you were replying to after your post?
  - macinjosh 7y ago
    I see your point. To me, victim blaming was implied by implying tourists having their camera's stolen don't deserve help because they aren't street smart in SF. I am not saying police shouldn't allocate resources to 'worse' crimes but we shouldn't also say it is the tourist victim's fault (e.g. "They should've known better!". I think that's a slippery slope that is best avoided. I may have read too deeply into the intent behind that comment though.

cft 7y ago

San Francisco DA elect: Boudin was born in New York City.[1] His parents, Kathy Boudin and David Gilbert, were Weather Underground members.[2] When Boudin was 14 months old, his parents were arrested for their role as getaway car drivers in the Brink's robbery of 1981 in Rockland County, New York.[1][3] His mother was sentenced to 20 years to life[4] and his father to 75 years to life for the felony murders of two police officers and a security guard.[5] After his parents were incarcerated, Boudin was raised in Chicago by adoptive parents Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, who, like his parents, were members of the Weather Underground.[6] Kathy Boudin was released under parole supervision in 2003.[3][7] Boudin descends from a long left-wing lineage. His great-great-uncle, Louis B. Boudin,[8] was a Marxist theoretician and author of a two-volume history of the Supreme Court's influence on American government, and his grandfather Leonard Boudin was an attorney who represented controversial clients such as Fidel Castro and Paul Robeson.[9] Boudin is also related to Michael Boudin,[8] a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, and I.F. Stone, an independent journalist.[8][10] Before law school, Boudin traveled to Venezuela and served as a translator in the administration of then-president Hugo Chávez.[12] After law school, from 2011-2012,

matt4077 7y ago
Are you seriously judging someone by their great-great-uncle's book? And why are you including a relative being a Appeals Court judge, and an independent journalist? Is "independent journalist" a code for something?
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago
  >Are you seriously judging someone by their great-great-uncle's book? Not the person you're referring to but barring exceptional circumstances the apple can only fall so far from the tree. That said, I don't see why being raised by a family full of super hardcore leftists has more than a passing impact on his politics wrt petty crime specifically. He could just as well have fallen on the "we should go hard on petty crime because it undermines social cohesion and respect for the rules of the state" side of things (obviously that's not how he turned out for reasons that are well documented but you get the point).

Shivetya 7y ago

Proposition 47 is the real bugaboo, it moved from felony to misdemeanor thefts under $950 which includes damage caused by them. this made breaking into cars pretty much a free pass because window damage rarely could exceed that. becoming a misdemeanor meant cops have no real reason to follow up. throw in the requirement to prove the doors are locked, well its easy to understand however the real dishonesty is from Lorena Gonzalez (D-San Diego) who claims a bill to at least remove the requirement for prosecutors prove a car was locked before being broken into based on costs. As in, they are very willing to pass the costs onto individuals; hence there still is a cost but to government it does not occur unless on their books. As it was pointed out, how is it never a crime to enter a vehicle you do not own without permission? Prop 47 lead to an increase in shop lifting because it set the limit high enough that it basically insured no one would get prosecuted. the common method is to send a bunch of people into a store at one time to get the goods in volume but with each individual being under the limit in monetary value if being young enough prosecution won't work either

mc32 7y ago
At a local Safeway woman loads cart with bottles of liquor. Walks out. She yells “I know my rights, I know my rights”. What are the cashiers and security going to do? Nothing, they let her go. At another place kids get caught stealing they turn over a display and run out. Again, nothing done. All those costs are borne by the paying customers. People are gonna get sick of it; the progressive supes are gonna rue this move. The DA race in SF was close. I think it’s gonna go the other way next election. Also word on the street is apparently thieves prefer SF to Daly City because San Mateo county doesn’t play as nice as SF.
- StuffedParrot 7y ago
  I believe what you’re describing is nation wide and doesn’t have anything to do with SF.
  - mc32 7y ago
    It’s the frequency and brazenness of the crimes that’s out of line with respect to other stats.

yalogin 7y ago

So a car is not considered personal property if it’s parked on the street? I thought me taking someone else’s property is illegal, isn’t it? Say I swiped your wallet, it’s obviously not locked in your pocket and you are on the street next to your car. Will I be prosecuted or not?

StuffedParrot 7y ago
The arrest rate for car breakin in SF is 2%, let alone prosecution. What’s your suggestion for raising that rate—hire a cop for every car in the city?
- sansnomme 7y ago
  This is precisely the sort of policy that drives development and acceptance of mass surveillance software. What exactly do you think a city of technologists is going to do when driven against a wall, stuck between trying to appear progressive and chronic material loss of personal property? It just takes one wrong middle manager to have a bad day and their car broken into before a certain cloud computing company decides that their smart surveillance doorbells can easily be adapted as car cams.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- tomschlick 7y ago
  The police don't arrest people when they know the DA is going to drop the charges immediately and their superiors are going to ask why they are wasting their time. This is entirely driven by the political atmosphere there where the DA would rather "its not really a crime" narrative than to prosecute and possibly face criticism from the progressive populace.
  - StuffedParrot 7y ago
    I don’t see anyone “progressive” arguing for not prosecuting people who break into cars, or not looking for them, or deprioritizing them. This is hardly a polarizing viewpoint. It’s just a useful dog whistle for certain styles of law and order conservatism. There IS a progressive effort to prioritize moving forward with felony charges over misdemeanors. Perhaps you got confused?

samcday 7y ago

Fun anecdote. I was living/working in San Francisco a couple of years ago. It was 10am on a work day. I was walking towards my office, along Folsom coming from the 101 towards 8th. Out of nowhere a guy just walks up to one of the cars parked on the street, smashes the rear window, and starts taking whatever was inside. There was several homeless people nearby just casually observing it, along with myself. The perpetrator clearly gave zero fucks and undertook the whole thing as casually as one might stop to tie their shoe on the street. It was a little surreal, and I was already desensitized to the ... interesting characteristics of SoMa streets by that point.

webninja 7y ago
I saw a similar surreal thing in San Fransisco. I was in the back left seat of a Lyft when I saw a man who appeared to be homeless walk up to a parked car on the side of the road. The traffic light was red so we were stopped with several cars in front of and behind us. The man peered into the windows, picked up his skateboard and bashed the back left side window of the car. He started pull out a non-descript black suitcase. The hole wasn’t big enough, so he had to bash the window more. I’m stunned as he’s doing this and I said aloud “Is he breaking into that car?”. “...Yeah he is.” - The Lyft driver cautiously replied. He got on his skateboard and casually skated away with the black suitcase. What can you do when that happens? The cops don’t accept picture text messages yet. Can you just shoot these burglars on sight or do they have to be on your private property for that?
- samcday 7y ago
  > Can you just shoot these burglars on sight or do they have to be on your private property for that? No idea about the law, but I would hope you value human life more than a stolen black suitcase.

skindog 7y ago

Easy solution, break into the cars of the lawmakers.

macinjosh 7y ago
Agreed, though I have a feeling those cases would be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
- gambiting 7y ago
  So....they would also hit a dead wall of having to prove the car was locked at the time when it was broken into? Because that's the crux of the issue here.
  - heimatau 7y ago
    I'm sure the 'crime' will be put under a different part of the law. I.e. Attacking a public official's property. They have different laws for them. Wouldn't change a thing.

xwdv 7y ago

This is why vehicles like the cybertruck are increasingly needed. If the government has failed to protect us and our property, then we need to have more hardened property and take matters into our own hands.

hodder 7y ago
Just as long as the burglars don't hit the window with a gently lofted marble right?
- chacha2 7y ago
  Didn't go through!

BatFastard 7y ago

As someone who has lived in a major city for the last 30 years there is just ONE rule. Leave nothing in your car and leave the doors unlocked. Leaving the door unlocked is the rule I adopted after a break in 30 years ago when only one of my doors was locked, and of course that window was broken!

ironmagma 7y ago
Sadly, this is not sufficient in SF. Many people have gotten so desperate as to hang posters that send the message to potential thieves: “please don’t break my window, there is nothing valuable in this car.” I’d say there’s far more than just one rule.
- BatFastard 7y ago
  What other rules would you suggest?
  - ironmagma 7y ago
    I'm not sure the premise is sound -- that there is a set of rules that if you abide by them, you won't have a car burglarized. Well, besides one that includes "don't have a car," at least. What says that there must be such a set? It seems essentially unavoidable, in San Francisco.
- sershe 7y ago
  When I was loading my car in SF to move out of SF (back to Seattle, not much of an improvement unfortunately) I left a note saying "I am loading the car, I am nearby and if I see you I will run out and kick your face in". I saw a homeless person check out the car (with lots of visible boxes already in it) and just walk by.
leetcrew 7y ago
this strategy just trades one risk for another. you're less likely to have your windows smashed, but more likely to find someone sleeping in your car in the morning. I'd rather deal with shattered glass than bodily excretions, personally.

Zelphyr 7y ago

This strikes me as such an odd law. Does CA feel the same about houses? Can one go break into a house and get away with it if the homeowner can't prove the doors were locked? I suspect not and, so, if not, why not? What was the impetus for such a law to begin with? Was there a rash of people leaving their cars unlocked and some politician decided it "serves them right" for getting broken into? The questions abound!

svachalek 7y ago
This year someone broke into my car in my driveway, got the garage door opener, opened the garage, stole some things there, opened the door into the house from the garage since we didn't habitually lock it back then, stole some things from the common areas while we slept in the bedrooms, then left a small pile of inferior loot from other stops in our front yard, some with nametags still on it. While I credit the police for showing up and putting a minor effort into investigating it, they were certainly not taking pictures and fingerprints and all the stuff you expect from TV. The attitude was mostly "eh, teenagers get up to bad stuff, make sure to lock your doors."

macinjosh 7y ago

For all those out there that applauded Prop 47 that helped lead to this mess let me tell you a story of how this law leads to more inequality not less. A single mother working 2 minimum wage jobs in different parts of the city uses her car to travel to work. She basically lives in her car so she must keep belongings she will need in there. While working her first shift for the day her car is broken into. Her bag with her uniform for her second shift is stolen along with everything else. The cops tell her that the damage to her 20 year old used car's window and the items stolen add up to less than $950 so they can't do much of anything for her. Meanwhile, across town, a rich tech elite's high end electric car is broken into and some valuable electronics are stolen. The damage and theft adds up to well over $950 so the police are able to investigate. At the end of the day the tech elite orders replacement electronics with next day prime delivery and has their assistant work on repairing the window. The single mother gets fired from her second job for not having the appropriate attire. Great work California.

coreless 7y ago
I don’t think your progressive Californian would disagree at all that that story is a shock to the conscience, or that California must change to stop that from happening. We’d disagree a lot about what the biggest problem in the story is, though.
sharkmerry 7y ago
Is there an article on this story?
generalpass 7y ago
An additional angle is that the state is well and truly out of money and running out of lenders, yet continues to see the number of poor and their related costs increase. One way to offset growth in welfare expenses might be to permit poor people some way to directly steal with impunity, thus they can still somehow be fed, while simultaneously reducing attendant enforcement costs and prison populations.
- azinman2 7y ago

BurningFrog 7y ago

Conspiracy theory: Allowing rampant car theft is yet another way rich San Franciscans - who can afford both indoor parking and new windows a few times a year - keep the non millionaire rabble away from the city.

yellowapple 7y ago
Well it's working, because as one member of that non-millionaire rabble, after moving here a year ago I desire nothing less than to move right back out.

egdod 7y ago

San Francisco is becoming a third world shithole, but with first world rent prices. Why would anyone choose to live there? Do people enjoy stepping in human feces and getting their cars stolen?

thorwasdfasdf 7y ago
there's no choice. that's where all the jobs are. software companies were incentivized to go to SF many years ago by the mayor/tax breaks then, which seems kinda corrupt, or at least misrepresenting the will of the people: most SF residents don't want tech companies there in the first place.

russellbeattie 7y ago

Numbers. How many suspects are actually set free because of this law? I suspect very few, and this is just a way to vilify those who want to look out for the working class and those in poverty. If lawmakers really want to solve car thefts, they need to look at the systemic economic problems that cause the need for such theft to occur, not look for more ways to put poor people in jail.

mensetmanusman 7y ago

Wait, was this the reason the cybertruck had a glass breaking demo?

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

subsaharancoder 7y ago

San Francisco is basically Gotham city without Batman and City hall is Arkham Asylum. The newly elected DA is bound to make it worse as he focuses on decriminalizing all non-violent crimes. In the words of my Uncle "You made your bed, now you must sleep in it.."

rrauenza 7y ago

There’s a YouTube channel Gas Station Encounters that videos shop lifters in their store in order to publicly shame them. They began publishing their videos out of frustration. Besides being pretty funny, it gives you some perspective on the people who shoplift with no shame. Link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWAhPpdcWedLgaB1KJEvfqA https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWAhPpdcWedLgaB1KJEvfqA