Wiener tries to shut odd loophole in car break-in law
Sometimes, laws seem to be written in the most confusing, ineffective way possible.
Take the state law on car break-ins, for example. Currently, smashing the window of a car and taking valuables inside it can be charged as a felony burglary only if it can be proved in court that the car doors were locked. Otherwise, it’s a misdemeanor theft.
Strangely, that smashed window doesn’t count as evidence the car was forcibly entered.
That means the victim of the break-in has to take time off work to come to court to testify under oath that, yes, the car was locked when somebody had to smash a window to get inside. Or, since the crime hits tourists visiting San Francisco so often, the visitor has to pay to return to the city where they had a terrible experience to testify that they did not, in fact, leave their doors unlocked for anybody to just open and take a gander inside.
Shockingly, few victims line up for the opportunity.
State Sen. Scott Wiener wants to rectify this odd loophole. On Tuesday, he will announce that he’s introducing a bill in Sacramento that would add six little words — “or when forced entry is used” — to the section of the state penal code that describes when an
auto break-in is a burglary that can be prosecuted as a felony. That means the smashed window will count as evidence.
“The idea that someone would smash the window of a car and get off scot-free because the district attorney can’t prove the door is locked — that’s ridiculous,” Wiener said.
“When someone has smashed in a window to get into a car, it really doesn’t matter whether the door was locked,” he continued. “You’re guilty of breaking into that car. Period.”
Agreed. It’s a good change to make, but it will only help in the fewer than 2 percent of car break-ins in the city that lead to an arrest. The vast majority of the more than 30,000 break-ins that were reported to police in 2017 never led to an arrest, and thus never made their way to the district attorney’s office for determination of whether to charge them as a felony or misdemeanor.
District Attorney George Gascón asked Wiener to introduce the legislation because his office has been having a hard time prosecuting the car break-in cases they do get.
“It’s not going to cure a lot of our problems, but it is a big component,” Gascón explained. “Even if all the windows are broken, we cannot prove burglary.”
Gascón, who was chief of the San Francisco Police Department before becoming the city’s district attorney, said a major reason so few break-ins lead to arrests is that police simply aren’t investigating the crimes.
Break-in victims are encouraged to make online reports, but they’re not encouraged to bring their cars into police stations for finger printing or the lifting of DNA evidence, he said. Police in San Francisco also rarely go to the crime scenes if the break-in is over, so they’re not asking nearby businesses for footage from their security cameras or finding other evidence, he said.
“What’s driving the numbers is understanding the likelihood of consequences is very low,” he said. “I refuse to accept that because we live in an urban area, we have to be subjected to more crime. If I accept that, I might as well pack my bags and go home.”
(Sidenote: Gascón could get that chance. He already has a challenger in his November 2019 re-election bid. Joe Alioto Veronese, son of former Supervisor Angela Alioto, is running for district attorney. His mom is running for mayor. Oh, to be a fly on the wall during those family dinners.)
Of the car break-in cases that do make it the district attorney’s office, prosecutors take action on more than 80 percent. That can mean prosecuting them in court or, if the suspect is on probation for a previous crime, counting the break-in as a probation violation, which could lead to jail time.
Police, of course, say they do take car break-ins seriously. They beefed up foot patrols in the fall and recently started a pilot program installing teams at particular district stations to focus on property crimes.
“We’ve been very clear that we understand the frustration of the community and the importance of trying new strategies to stem these crimes,” said police spokesman David Stevenson. “We are doing everything we can on the investigative side to identify and arrest offenders.”
Hey, good news! On the car break-in front, there’s nowhere for these agencies to go but up. Money and muffins: In my constant quest to find bits of sweet news amidst all the sour, I bring you the tale of Jacob Kaufman and his selfproclaimed National Muffin Day, which this year falls on Sunday.
This is the fourth year of Kaufman’s muffin day phenomena, the day when San Franciscans are encouraged to bake muffins, hand them out to homeless people and post a photo of said muffins on Twitter or Instagram with the hashtag #givemuffins.
For every person who does this simple task, $30 will be given to Project Homeless Connect. That’s $10 apiece from Kaufman, his parents and his former law firm, Smithline PC. Last year, $4,830 was raised — this year, Kaufman is aiming for $6,000.
The 36-year-old lives in the Parkside neighborhood and quit his lawyer job to write an oral history of San Francisco, interviewing 50 people over age 65 about their experiences in the city. (“Which you’re more than welcome to plug in your column also!” said the strategic Kaufman, who added he has no actual book title, but 17 working ones.)
He hands out homemade muffins to homeless people on the weekends, with banana chocolate chip being his favorite to make, but blueberry being the most requested.
He acknowledges muffins won’t do much for people who so desperately need so much more, but he said they’re a simple overture that can mean a lot.
“What I’ve really found when I talk to a lot of homeless people, their biggest complaint is they feel like they’re invisible and people don’t see them as human beings,” he said. “When I tell someone, ‘I baked this myself for you because I care about you,’ it really means a lot.”
For more information, email Kaufman at jk.babylon@ gmail.com. He says he’ll email muffin recipes to whoever wants them. Happy National Muffin Day!