Bay Area ‘ram-raiding’ robberies on rise
The crimes unfold with astonishing speed — and in many cases, an explosion of broken glass. A group of perpetrators slam a car through a storefront, load it with stolen merchandise and flee in seconds.
It happened Thursday morning at the Dior store in San Francisco’s Union Square, where a motorist smashed through the glass double doors, enabling a burglary crew to run in and ransack the shelves.
That caper exemplified an increasingly popular, batteringram approach that thieves have used throughout the Bay Area, breaking into such businesses as the CVS pharmacy near Twin Peaks, Sunglasses Hut in the Marina, Sports Basement in the Mission, at least one dispensary in the Richmond District, Lululemon in Berkeley and a Louis Vuitton store in Walnut Creek’s Broadway Plaza. The list goes on. And on.
Police have a term for it: “ram raiding.” According to law enforcement officials in Oakland, the crime pattern is an outgrowth of surging automobile thefts and carjackings. San Francisco police logged 5,166 stolen car reports as of Oct. 1, a 10% increase from 4,690 as of the same date last year; Oakland saw a 50% uptick in auto thefts, from 7,594 as of Oct. 8 last year, to 11,417 this year.
People who steal cars often use the vehicles to commit other crimes — including burglaries initiated by crashing through a store facade, police say, citing incident reports and observations. The burglars appear to seek out specific items, such as cigarettes, apparel, marijuana or safes full of cash.
“It’s efficient because they come in two or three vehicles, which are usually stolen or have stolen license plates,” said Oakland police Lt. Omar Daza-Quiroz, a command officer in the burglary and general crimes unit. He said the trend took root in 2016, when a group drove an SUV straight into a downtown Palo Alto Apple store, shattering the front glass windows to plunder iPhones and other electronics.
Within four years, thieves had begun using the method to swarm marijuana dispensaries, Daza-Quiroz said, driving into building walls and then using jacks or other tools to lift up security fences or roll-down doors. Cars arrived in caravans, usually stolen or bearing stolen license plates, sometimes abandoned at the scene of the crime.
As their tactics grew more sophisticated, burglary rings moved on to high-profile targets: pharmacies, luxury fashion boutiques, department stores in downtown shopping districts. The sacking of Dior on Thursday showed how emboldened these crews have become. Images of a worker kneeling in shards of glass captured the public imagination, at a moment when San Francisco officials are trying to get the upper hand on break-ins.
“What we’re hearing from retailers in San Francisco is that the city has expanded its efforts to combat this type of crime,” said Daniel Herzstein, director of public policy at the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce.
If ram-raid attacks require planning and coordination, they play out as frantic, chaotic scenes that end with thousands of dollars in damage. Tim Omi experienced this firsthand on a Thursday night in March, when a driver backed an SUV through the front gate of his dispensary in lower Pacific Heights.
“They were looking to get into the vault,” Omi said, remembering the call he received from police shortly before midnight, after two vehicles rolled up to his shop, Liberty Cannabis. One car battered the front door three times. Six people jumped out and made a beeline for the back door, Omi said, setting off an “ear-deafening alarm system” and stuffing their sweatshirts with cannabis products as they fled.
Although the thieves failed to find cash, they mangled the entryway.
Omi spent $45,000 installing metal beams in the door and fortifying the gate, hoping to make the shop impenetrable.
“I love the city, but I feel at a loss for words,” said Omi, who is also president of the Fillmore Merchants Association. “Business (owners) on the corridor feel vulnerable.”
James Dudley, a retired deputy chief in the San Francisco Police Department who now works as a lecturer at San Francisco State University, recalled ram-raid incidents as far back as 15 years ago, when he was on the force. Back then, he said, thieves would use cars to break down security gates of gun stores, or to steal an ATM they would chain to the back of the vehicle.
But the crimes have become more commonplace and brazen, a shift that, according to Dudley, coincides with police reforms that restrict low-level traffic stops.
In Oakland, San Francisco, and other cities throughout California, police commissions have enacted or are weighing policies to eliminate stops for minor infractions, which consume resources and disproportionately impact motorists of color, supporters of the restrictions say.
Dudley and other critics say the reforms have a chilling effect, making it difficult for officers to intervene when a driver is behaving suspiciously.
“Sometimes it’s difficult for officers to articulate the reason” they’re stopping someone when a bunch of small clues amount to a “reasonable suspicion,” Dudley said: “They’re driving 15 miles an hour on a street with a 35 mph speed limit, wearing a mask, swiveling their head, and reaching under their seat.”
San Francisco Police Commissioner Kevin Benedicto pushed back, saying that San Francisco’s pretextual traffic stop policy — which has been waylaid in negotiations with the police union — would not prevent an officer from stopping a person who was driving erratically, “much less driving through a storefront.”
Business owners on the sidelines of these debates have one other recourse: hardening their buildings. Some, like Omi, are adding beams or strengthening fences. Others put metal posts in the concrete, said Duncan Ley, co-owner of a dispensary in the Richmond that suffered two burglaries this year, though as of yet, no one has crashed a car through the doorway.
Such “crime prevention through environmental design” need not be ugly or intrusive, Dudley said, noting that merchants could put art installations or decorative bollards in front of their doorways, or plant rocks on the sidewalk.
Nonetheless, Ley expressed frustration, saying burglars find ways to maneuver around barriers.
“You think you have a narrow doorway, but they’ll literally find a car to fit into that space,” he said. “No one is impervious.”