San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Phil Matier:
When looters rolled into Union Square, cameras were rolling as well. Now many may find themselves starring in their own crime drama.
Looters who hit San Francisco’s fashionable Union Square during the protests may be in for a surprise — the area has nearly 430 security cameras, and video from them has been turned over to the police as evidence for arrests.
“We have a standing team of 23 burglary investigators and video analysts, and they are going through hundreds of hours of video from around the city,” Deputy Chief David
Lazar said.
During last weekend’s chaos that followed protests over the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, there were 18 smashins reported around Union Square and 129
reports of looting citywide.
Unlike other parts of the city, Union Square merchants have been aggressively installing security cameras in recent years while working with police to thwart organized shoplifting gangs. And when the looters rolled up and hit highend stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue, Salvatore Ferragamo and West Coast Leather, the cameras were rolling too.
“We have made video footage available to the SFPD and are working with their burglary unit to pull video for the various incidents,” Union Square Business Improvement District Executive Director Karin Flood said.
In one instance, cameras caught a group smashing the windows of a camera store on Bush Street and then reportedly hauling out $800,000 worth of merchandise and loading it into a getaway van.
Another video shows a man dressed as a security guard smashing the windows of the Christian Louboutin store on Maiden Lane so looters could enter.
“Then the cars come up and people start loading them up,” Lazar said. “It seems to be very organized.”
And it had nothing to do with the protests.
There were 32 arrests at Union Square as the looting occurred, and there have been 92 arrests for looting citywide.
Investigators are now working to match the pictures of those arrested to videos of the actual looting. The idea is to get photographic evidence directly linking suspects to crimes. “We have also IDd a number of people that are known to us from prior burglaries or other instances,” Lazar said. “We have several suspects and will be pursuing more arrests involving individuals from all over the Bay Area.” What consequences the looters may face remain to be seen.
Burglary and looting can be charged as a felony or a misdemeanor. In either case. looting is still a “nonviolent” crime, and diversion programs are often recommended over jail time. So the final result of the arrests is unknown. Whatever the outcome of the arrests, most storefronts around Union Square that had earlier taken down their plywood are boarded up again, although many are still aiming for June 15 to reopen.
“But some have been delayed by a week due to this setback,” Flood said.
1 out of 5: Justreleased numbers from the U.S. Department of Labor show the nation’s job numbers got a significant jolt, with economy gaining 2.5 million jobs in May.
But San Francisco, still largely shut down, has a ways to go.
Since the shutdown started in March, a record 116,346 San Franciscans — roughly onefifth the city’s workforce — have either lost their job or had work hours reduced to the point where they could file for assistance, according to the May 16 numbers from the California Employment Development Department.
San Francisco’s Chief Economist Ted Egan put the city’s workforce at 551,400. The 116,346 unemployment filings only cover the period from March 7, the week before the shutdown.
In the two weeks leading up to the May 16 numbers, filings for assistance came in at 3,749 and 4,165 a week.
To put the numbers in perspective, the 2008 recession unemployment figures peaked at 45,000.
“The effect is a severe recession,” Egan said.
As for the prospect of a speedy recovery? “When businesses reopen, they’re not going to have the same demand they had before the virus,” he said. “On average, 20% of their customers will be missing a paycheck. So they won’t be able to hire everyone back immediately.
“And those paychecks won’t be all coming back at once, and it will take some time to get back to full employment,” Egan said.
Law and money: Progressive supervisors have tagged Mayor London Breed’s nominee to the Police Commission, Nancy Tung, for being too close to the Police Officers Association, in part because of a $500 contribution she received from the union during her run for district attorney last year.
Just as quickly, Tung’s supporters countered that her critics, Supervisors Hillary Ronen, Gordon Mar, Matt Haney and Shamann Walton have all received $500 campaign contributions from the the city’s other major law enforcement union, the Deputy Sheriffs’ Association, in the past two years.
Mar said he is donating the money to local nonprofits.
Ronen and Walton said the sheriff ’s deputies and police unions are apples and oranges.
“Unlike the POA, the Deputy Sheriffs’ Association has been collaborative on reform and oversight measures,” Ronen said.
Once again friends are friends and enemies are enemies, but political money is money.
San Francisco Chronicle columnist Phil Matier appears Sundays and Wednesdays. Matier can be seen on the KGOTV morning and evening news and can also be heard on KCBS radio Monday through Friday at 7:50 a.m. and 5:50 p.m. Got a tip? Call 4157778815, or email pmatier@ sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @philmatier