A coordinated group of more than 80
people stormed into a Nordstrom's
in a wealthy suburb
of San Francisco on Saturday night.
Running into their cars as soon as
they took a bunch of items from the
store as much as they could carry.
And by the way, this was part of a
string of burglaries and robberies
that have been taking place in
the area, so even in this weekend,
there were several of them.
Now, the robbery was over
within minutes,
as was reported by USA today as
thieves armed with crowbars and
wearing ski masks streamed out
of the Nordstrom into the dozens of
cars lining the block.
It was very clear that this was
an organized crime because we're
literally talking about more than
80 people, they
had the getaway car's ready to go.
They outnumbered the police in
the area, they swarmed in,
got out with the items.
Now this is in Walnut Creek and
the Walnut Creek Police Department
say that one employee was
pepper sprayed and
two others were punched and kicked.
So some of the workers at this
Nordstrom were in fact injured as
a result of this.
And onlookers did give their take
on the chaos that ensued.
The manager at a nearby PF Chang
said there was a mob of people,
the police were flying in.
It was like a scene out of a movie,
it was insane.
And we have one quick video
to show you of that scene,
let's take a look.
[NOISE]
>> I think it's incredible like how
brazen this was, especially
considering the fact that they're
getting into cars with the license
plates just in plain view.
So, so far three individuals have
been arrested, police are reviewing
the surveillance to see if they can
find any other suspects.
>> Yeah, guys, before you make
a rush to judgment on who did it.
Be careful on this one,
there was a lot of nice cars in
the getaway scene, okay?
I think I saw a Mercedes and
a BMW in there and it looked like
a lot of young kids, they a lot of
them appear to be white.
And there's a rich area of town,
80 people at once, the first thing
I thought of is it sounds like
stupid young people thinking, we
can do this and get away with it.
Okay, so I'm not rushing to
judgment either,
let's see what happens.
And obviously attracted,
the good news is they're going to
get caught now, why do I say that?
They're idiots for three clear
reasons here, number one, when you
do a crime with 80 people at once,
somebody's going to tell the cops,
[LAUGH] once you get beyond talk.
Yeah, once you get beyond three,
you're in a world of trouble,
80 people are going to leak,
like a sieve, especially my
theories anywhere near, right.
And they go to an upper
middle class home and go, hey,
we hear johnny was involved in
a national robbery, johnny people
like bobby made me do it.
Susie made me do it, okay, so
they're going to leak like crazy.
They're going to turn on each other
at record pace.
So number two, [LAUGH] there was so
many of them that cause
a traffic jam, you can clearly see
their license plates.
>> It's amazing.
>> Yeah, not very bright here, and
then finally the cardinal,
they broke the cardinal rule of
crime in America,
you rob rich people, you're
not going to get away with that.
Well, I mean, look, it's actually
this is something that I've been
kind of keeping close tabs on kind
of waiting to figure out what's
happening because this is
an ongoing trend in the Bay Area.
There were four similar robberies
within a 72-hour period, right, so
this is something
that's been taking place.
When these types of stories first
started breaking, you'd see
the videos of like someone going
into a Walgreens, for instance.
And stuffing a bag full of items
and just walking out and I kind of
held off on covering those stories.
Because I was a little curious
about what was really taking place
are these isolated incidents.
Walgreens claims that they're going
to shut down a bunch of stores, but
there was some evidence that they
were planning on doing that anyway.
And they're just blaming it on
the crime, but no, this has become
a problem in the bay Area,
there's no question about it.
And I'm sorry,
I'm sure some on the left might not
like this commentary, but
I don't really care.
Some of the response that I've seen
from the left is, so what man,
politicians are looting the country
every day now don't do that,
what about ISM?
We're talking about workers who got
punched and kicked, one who got
pepper sprayed in the face.
We can't have lawlessness like this
and it's happening on a regular
basis in san Francisco.
I don't really care that much about
private property, right?
I think that we prioritize private
property over human lives far too
much in this country, but creating
an environment or defending
an environment of lawlessness and
crime is unacceptable.
People deserve to feel safe,
people deserve to be able to go out
with their families and
not feel threatened.
Workers should feel safe at work
without having to deal with mobs
coming in and
punching them in the face, so yeah,
this is a huge problem.
And I'm trying to figure out what
it is about
the Bay Area specifically,
that's leading to this.
Now some are arguing that it's
because of a proposition that was
passed Prop 47 which I can give you
some details about, so
let's go to graphic seven here.
So in 2014 there was a referendum
Prop 47 it raised the dollar amount
of how much merchandise had to be
stolen in order for a shoplifting
to be considered a felony.
After Prop 47 past theft of
commercial merchandise under $950
became only a misdemeanor with
a maximum penalty of six months
in jail.
So there are some arguments that in
an effort to reform the criminal
justice system, that has led to
some unintended consequences.
Which I think might be worth
looking at because again,
this is an ongoing issue in the san
Francisco Bay Area.
>> Yeah, so you're right that it's
definitely affecting wealthy areas,
but that's why there's now a huge
blow back.
And that's why context matters when
I first started seeing those
videos.
I thought yes, but
there's tons of robberies all
across the country all the time.
If you showed three
of them back to back,
it would seem like an epidemic,
even if the numbers are lower than
they used to be, right?
But now it looks like there's
enough evidence that it is a real
issue.
And that crime is going up and they
are hitting both the pharmacies and
these high scale stores with some
regularity.
And so now we get into speculation
as to why and I have to say that I
do think it has to do with lack of
law enforcement.
And so now, first of all, you don't
have to take extreme positions,
right wing left wing or
anywhere else in the middle.
So the extreme right wing position
is that's why we need to stop and
frisk and
a cost 96% innocent blacks and
Latinos.
No, you don't have to randomly
assault the black person to
actually do your job of
doing law enforcement, right?
I don't agree with the extreme
position of no, if it's a lower
level crime, let's not enforce it.
No, you enforce the law,
that's why it's the law.
Sometimes what I'll do is frame
on the show regulations is simply
law and order.
So a company cannot pollute in your
backyard because that is a law that
we have, right?
And obviously people can't go into
a store, smash the place, hit
people and grab the merchandise.
That's the law we have or
you can call it regulation,
it doesn't matter, but
the bottom line is, of course,
we have to enforce the laws.
There's nothing left wing or
progressive about not enforcing
laws because first of all,
obviously, and then be if
we have to explain it further.
The people who commit crimes almost
always hurt the powerless, so
it's not the CEO of Nordstrom that
gets punched in the face.
It's the employee gets punched in
the face and heard and
everybody's got weapons.
Now it's shocking that these
robberies have not turned
into more death and destruction.
>> Yeah, and look what happens when
a problem is ignored, right?
Well, it's not like people in that
area are noticing what's
happening, right?
And so the pendulum in terms of
support for criminal justice reform
swings in the opposite direction.
Listen, for all the grief, we've,
I think, justifiably give Biden for
championing that awful crime bill,
you've got to understand
the climate in which he like
was able to pass it.
And it was because there he could
exploit the fear people were living
in fear as a result of high crime
rates.
It's not like we were experiencing
the kind of environment we had
a year ago or two years ago,
everything was all hunky dory.
And all of a sudden Biden comes in
with this Draconian crime bill,
crime was pretty high
in the 80s and 90s, which created
the environment that would lead to
the passage of such bill.
And my point is,
if you ignore these issues and
pretend like they're non-issues,
the communities that are
experiencing these problems are not
going to think they're non-issues.
And they're going to be far more
supportive of Draconian policies
that have far worse
unintended consequences.
So that's something that I
really wanted to get across.
And then the other thing you
mentioned, the lack of policing,
you're right about that.
So when it comes to
the San Francisco Police Department
currently right now, as we speak,
they're short 400 officers.
So they're understaffed, we're also
living in the pandemic era where
people have their face coverings.
Which provides a disguise or
you know,
they can cover their identity and
commit these crimes and
get away with it.
So I think that it's a mix of
different factors and
it's become a problem that I do
think needs to be addressed.
>> Yeah, and the mask helping
a couple of different ways,
unfortunately in this situation,
we talked about this before.
It's not only gives you a disguise,
but it also lets you blend in with
everyone else because everybody's
wearing masks.
So the guy wearing the mask doesn't
look extraordinary,
they just look normal.
And so when folks saw that it
looked like there was no law
enforcement and
everybody is masked up.
So nobody can tell who you are,
at least the dumbass crimes like
this where they then mosey on
out with their license plates
showing, right?
By the way, if you want to talk
about political blame,
this phenomenon clearly started
under trump, so I don't think that
it's a trump thing.
I don't think it's a Biden saying
although I am worried about
the so-called blue flu where law
enforcement sometimes goes, yeah,
you want to defund the police.
Then we're not going to do our
jobs, so that gets to a point where
they're even robbing rich areas and
that rich people get really mad.
And then they put a lot of pressure
on politicians and
then the politicians go back
to being stupidly draconian.
And handing over
everything to the police,
including the ability to hurt
minorities for no reason, right?
Like in this case, that don't look
like to be the issue at all, but
what will be a reaction to this?
My guess is the reaction will be
an overreaction.
>> Exactly.
>> Can we please get balance for
once in our lives?
Yeah, and look, I was listening to
interviews with the workers, not
just from Nordstrom, but from like
other stores that had been targeted
by these large groups of people.
And look, no one should be going to
work at a retail store,
terrified for their lives.
They're like barricading themselves
in the back, again,
let's not minimize what kind of
environment this creates for
people who are powerless, right?
Workers who are just trying to
do their jobs and
they're dealing with this on top of
all the other issues that workers
have to deal with these days.
So yeah, I wanted to cover it and
give you guys some details on that.
We'll let you know if
we learn anything different
about what's causing it.
But again, I do think that it's
a mix of several different factors