If You Start Seeing Cars Parked with the Trunk Open, It's Time to Get Out of Dodge
Ah, San Francisco.
Arguably America’s world-class city. Beautiful location, beautiful homes, storied history.
Sure, there are some problems.
OK, there are serious problems — derelicts lying in stupor on the sidewalks, feces in the street, increased lawlessness.
The latter is symbolized by people keeping tailgates and trunks open in parked cars to let potential thieves know there’s nothing inside worth breaking a window for, KGO-TV reported on Dec. 15.
So if you visit San Francisco (why would you these days?), take the hint – if you see a street with trunks open on parked cars, park somewhere else.
That’s what it has come to. It’s that bad.
“It doesn’t really surprise me,” Drennon Lindsey, interim deputy police chief in nearby Oakland, said in KGO-TV video.
Oakland has its problems, too, with car break-ins up 27 percent compared to last year, and burglaries up 27 percent from September to October of this year, the outlet reported. The numbers for San Francisco are 32 percent and 25 percent, respectively.
Some in San Francisco are merely putting signs on their cars saying there’s nothing of value inside, or telling thieves to just open the car door instead of breaking a window.
Get stopped in San Francisco traffic and you might have thieves come up, smash a window and reach inside to steal things.
And Garret Tom, former San Francisco deputy police chief, told KGO that the tailgate surrender tactic has dangers more sinister than broken windows.
“They can steal your batteries; they can go into your glove department and find out where you live,” he said.
Tom also warned that if drivers leave their trunk open, some thieves could reach the interior of cars, depending on the type of vehicle.
That’s the way it is in the People’s Paradise of San Francisco. But if you’ve been paying attention, you aren’t really surprised, are you?
In the City by the Bay, groups of thieves can walk into a Neiman Marcus store and run out with all the loot they can grab. Of course, they’re wearing masks, but aren’t a lot of people still doing that in Democrat-controlled cities?
How convenient.
No need to go in a gang — just bring a trash bag into a store such as a Walgreens, load it up, and as long as you steal under $950 worth of stuff, all is cool.
Nobody’s going to do anything to you.
Except Walgreens might stop putting up with it — they have closed 17 San Francisco stores in the past five years.
Target has tried to counter theft problems by reducing hours in some stores.
In San Francisco, more people died last year of drug overdoses than of COVID, according to The New York Times.
And shootings more than doubled in the first half of 2021 compared to the same time in 2020. They went from 58 to 119, and Police Chief Bill Scott wants more police in a city where the mayor unsuccessfully tried to reduce the police budget.
Also, half of people released under San Francisco’s no-cash-bail policy committed another crime while free, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
The city has a prosecutor so derelict in pursuing criminals that liberals are turning against him, including some individuals in his office, The New York Times reported. The prosecutor, Chesa Boudin, faces recall.
So all those trunks and tailgates up in the air might be more than just attempts to protect windows. They might be signifying surrender. As in, “We give up.”
And that’s a shame in an otherwise beautiful city.
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