California governor adds more police to ‘highly trafficked’ shopping areas after mass thefts - The Guardian

Stores in several San Francisco Bay area cities were targeted by groups of people smashing glass cases and stealing merchandise.

California’s governor announced there would be greater police presence around “highly trafficked” shopping malls after a series of mass thefts at high-end stores throughout the San Francisco Bay area.

The weekend robberies started in San Francisco on Friday around 8pm, when groups broke into stores such as Louis Vuitton, Burberry and Bloomingdale’s in the downtown area and in Union Square, a posh shopping district popular with tourists that was teeming with holiday shoppers.

Similar scenes were repeated Sunday in jewelry, sunglasses and clothing stores in the cities of Hayward and San Jose, police said.

Reports of brazen retail thefts in recent months, including reports of break-ins at tourist hotspots and viral videos of people running out of high-end stores with arms filled with merchandise, have fueled calls from resident groups, conservative lawmakers and the police union for a more aggressive law enforcement response.

Property crimes appear to have decreased in the city from 2019 to 2020, according to data from the San Francisco police department’s crime dashboard.

Following the thefts this weekend, San Francisco’s police chief, Bill Scott, said car access to the streets in Union Square will soon be limited and the area will be flooded with police officers.