WATCH: Amid Chicago smash-and-grab crime surge, Mayor Lori Lightfoot blames stores
On "The Rubin Report," BlazeTV host Dave Rubin talked about Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot finding a surprising new group to blame for the smash-and-grab robberies and organized retail theft: It’s the fault of the stores, of course.
Dave shared a clip of Mayor Lightfoot blaming store owners for Chicago’s crime spike. In a bizarre case of blaming the victim, the mayor said she was "disappointed" with stores for not having security guards and better cameras.
"I'm disappointed that [retailers] are not doing more to take safety and make it a priority. For example, we still have retailers that won't institute plans like having security officers in their stores. Making sure that they've got cameras that are actually operational," Lightfoot says in the clip.
"She's so ridiculous," Dave said reacting to Lightfoot's statement. "So you defund the police. People feel that they can commit crimes more. We know about all these DAs who don't prosecute crimes, so you're allowed to steal a certain amount of stuff. And instead of her looking in the mirror ... and saying 'Oh, maybe I had something to do with this. Maybe my policies — even though I think I'm a good tolerant progressive and everything I do is good just because I believe it's good — maybe my policies are increasing crime.' Right? Like, 'I did this, now this happened. Maybe there's a connection.' Instead of doing that, though, she's blaming the business owners for not having more security in their stores "
Watch the video clip below or find more episodes of "The Rubin Report" here:
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VIDEO: Brazen crook pulls off not one, but two smash-and-grab robberies from vehicles on San Francisco street in broad daylight
Dashcam video captured the moment a brazen crook pulled off not one, but two smash-and-grab robberies from parked cars on a San Francisco street in broad daylight.
What are the details?
KGO-TV reporter Dion Lim posted the disturbing clip on her Twitter page, saying the video was sent to her and that the act took place in the Fisherman's Wharf area. The date on the clip shows it was recorded Friday.
The video shows a man dressed in a light gray hoodie and dark gray pants standing next to the open passenger door of a car heading down the street. The man reaches into the window of a parked SUV parked, pulls property from the vehicle, and then tosses it into the waiting car, which continues moving slowly down the street with the passenger door still open.
The video captures an image of the SUV's smashed window as well:
The culprit follows alongside his getaway vehicle and skips a Volkswagon van painted in 1960s psychedelic fashion and parked in the opposite direction — hey, it's Frisco, after all — but he goes to work on the very next vehicle, presumably smashing a window and reaching in and grabbing property and tossing it in the getaway vehicle.
The crook then gets into the getaway vehicle's passenger seat, and the car takes off down the street as a woman emerges to check out the damage to the second vehicle.
Here's the video:
A man named Joe Johnson sent this to me this morning. It’s dash cam footage of car break-ins in the Fisherman’s Wha… https://t.co/V35dyWOWVY
— Dion Lim (@DionLimTV) 1634618546.0
How did folks react?
San Francisco has been enduring a steady increase in brazen criminal acts of late, as the crooks seemingly have lost interest in sneaking around.
Commenters on the video in Lim's post were none too pleased:
- "Seriously, this should be easiest of the crimes to get a handle," one user said. "It shows the unwillingness to deal with this crime from city officials."
- "San Francisco's permissiveness is the reality here," another commenter noted. "Decades of ignoring the little stuff and voting 'progressive.' Keep incentivizing criminal behavior with no consequences. Elections have consequences."
- "We parked our car right across our street around 9ish pm; the next morning at 7am our front passenger window smashed & the interior was a mess," another user said. "The window costed us $450 not including time wasted! 3 days later happened again to my neighbor's car & 2 days later another one."
The same culprits?
It appears the same culprits were captured on cellphone video the same day emptying contents from bags they stole on a sidewalk:
ARMED SUSPECTS SMASH & GRAB: Witness who sent me this video says the two suspects seen in this video were breaking… https://t.co/hOT4lf5zmp
— Taylor Bisacky (@TaylorBisackyTV) 1634343880.0
And it turns out one of their victims was an Australian singer-songwriter in town to shoot video for his new album — and Clinton Kane told KRON-TV the perps pulled a gun on him when he tried to stop them.
"I didn't want to necessarily risk anything and die," Kane noted to the station. "Then we were just on the ground with our hands raised ..."
He told KRON the crooks ran away with $30,000 worth of equipment and memory cards containing completed filming.
Kane and his team stopped for lunch in the Cow Hollow neighborhood and were sitting outside Rooster & Rice on Filbert Street — just feet away from their rental car — when the crooks drove up and shattered the vehicle's windows, the station said.
San Francisco police told KRON they're working on Kane's case and similar ones that may be connected.
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