A former San Francisco prosecutor said the city’s crime is worse than the data shows because cops avoid arrests because a “pro-crime” prosecutor fails to crack down.
Charles Cooley-Stimson said the public is reluctant to report crimes and the police are reluctant to make arrests because they know District Attorney Brock Jenkins will not prosecute.
In July 2022, San Fran mayor named Brock Jenkins, an outspoken critic of ousted DA Chesa Boudin, as his replacement, saying her choice was the right person to pursue criminal justice reform while holding criminals accountable.
Voters in the popularly liberal city ousted the politically progressive Bowden in a recall election a month ago. Jenkins, who resigned from Bowden’s office in 2021 to volunteer for a recall, is both Black and Latino. She is San Francisco’s first Latina District Attorney. Vice President Kamala Harris was the city’s first black DA.
Although the townspeople continue to wage a seemingly never-ending battle against criminals, it has been exposed recently with the murder of Cash App CEO Bob Lee and the brutal daylight attack on the town’s former fire commissioner.
Brooke Jenkins has been the troubled city’s DA for less than a year after replacing the equally progressive Chesa Boudin
Former San Francisco District Attorney Charles Cooley Stimson said police are reluctant to make arrests because they know the current “pro-crime” district attorney won’t stand trial.
Stimson suggested that San Francisco’s crime statistics are worse than the numbers would suggest
Stimson points the finger at former District Attorney George Gascon, who served in office between 2011 and 2019, as the city’s number one problem.
He says it was between 2015 and 2016 when San Francisco’s crime problem really took hold because of Gascon’s controversial policies.
“These policies include not prosecuting any misdemeanors, commuting most felonies to misdemeanors, not requiring long prison sentences even for people convicted of the most heinous crimes, and not requiring bail,” Stimson said.
Citing Justice Department data, Stimson said that when Gascon took office, there was an average of 151 rapes per year. By 2019, the number had increased to 346 per year.
Stimson added, “You always identify with rape… The number of people who actually get raped is much higher than the number of people who report being raped.”
Aggressive assaults also rose from 2,300 a year to about 2,600 during the Gascon period.
Stimson also noted the policies of both Gascon and Bowden not to prosecute retail theft.
“I’ve seen the videos of people just participating in the Five Finger discount, walking to Target, walking to Nordstrom Rack…and just walking out during the day with $950 worth of stuff. They refused to sue for any of that.”
San Francisco District Attorney Chisa Bowden speaks to supporters during an Election Night event in June 2022
Organic food giant Whole Foods opens a new ‘flagship’ location at Trinity Place in the city’s Tenderloin district in March 2022
A Whole Foods spokesperson announced the store’s closure last night due to safety concerns for its employees amid rampant drug use, theft and aggressive behavior in the area.
Stimson went on to raise other issues plaguing San Francisco, including its status as a conservation city, the emergence of police moves and major retailers including Whole Foods and Walgreens on the run for criminality.
In the end, Stimson was optimistic, saying that more arrests were happening and that the tent camps were crimes happening.
“But it’s still a protected city,” he reluctantly conceded, “so illegal aliens, who are a good percentage of the people caught, are not turned over to ICE even after they’ve been convicted.”
San Francisco Police Officers Association Vice President Lt. Tracy McCrae said the neighborhood where Cash App founder Bob Lee was murdered has already seen at least 12 murders this year alone.
The city’s South and South Tenderloin areas, which have seen high crime rates this year, have seen four stabbings in the past week alone, including mine.
“We are short staffed, so our presence in the leagues is sorely lacking at the moment. It is expected that we will see a certain rise in crime, but I think we are now on the brink where we can go one way or the other.
Last week, San Francisco was rocked by the brutal murder of Cash App founder Bob Lee, pictured
Disturbed cell phone footage shared on a local live app shows a man walking around the vicinity with a metal bar in his hand before the attack on Don Carmenani
Lee, 43, was stabbed multiple times in the chest while walking in the city’s Rincon Hill neighborhood at 2:35 a.m., which is located in the South District, near the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.
McCrae says the police force is understaffed and the entire neighborhood is now at a tipping point.
One day later, the former San Francisco Fire Commissioner was brutally attacked with a metal crowbar just steps from his mother’s front door.
Disturbing cell phone footage shows a man wandering around the vicinity with a metal bar in his hand – although police have not yet confirmed that he is the attacker.
Don Carmenani, 53, was left fighting for his life in hospital after the horrific beating on April 5.
Close friends of the victim claim he was targeted by a “homeless group” as he was leaving his mother’s home outside the city’s Marina district.
Carmenani – who served as Fire Commissioner in 2013 – was reportedly cut with a knife as well as having his skull fractured by the pipe.
Friends said his family has since decided to flee the city. Carmenani is expected to make a full recovery.
Bowden has been the target of a multimillion-dollar recall campaign by residents who say San Francisco is becoming an increasingly unsafe place to live.
Many of the recall’s supporters were Democrats in a city where Republicans are a distinct minority. But the election has ramifications beyond San Francisco, where national polls show Americans are increasingly concerned about violent crime.
Bowden was elected as San Francisco District Attorney in 2019 promising criminal justice reforms aimed at removing offenders from the lower level of prison and sparing juveniles from facing long prison terms.
His critics blame those policies for a rise in murders, shootings and property crimes, as well as an increase in hate crimes against Asian Americans and a proliferation of open-air drug markets.
His advocates say the spike is a result of the pandemic and they’ve seen crime return to pre-existing levels. They contend that the increasing number of homeless people in the city has distorted some residents’ perceptions of security.
