Well, it's not a surprise to anyone
around the downtown or midtown
Sacramento areas that homelessness
continues to be an issue.
But does the presence of a homeless
population lead to increased crime?
I spoke with multiple business
owners along the Broadway
corridor who say yes in tonight's
cover story. They tell me something
needs to be done about it now.
Dharmendra ROM is the owner of
CMP liquor store on Broadway.
He has a laundry list
of vandalism to his property.
He says was done by homeless
individuals in the area.
They all over the place.
You know, right here in front
of my door right there.
I have to come and you do pressure washing.
That takes about 2-3 hours.
All my electrical panels back there
you'll see all good bars and grills.
Because they took my little panel
out second time in three years.
Who does that?
Shireen Prasad is a manager at
the Chevron Gas Station next door,
across street, you'll see like
lots of homeless sitting there,
just camping and whenever they see is
not in front right here in this area,
they just come in our store,
steal and the grab and leave.
Prasad says, just one week
ago her coworker was beaten.
When he asked a man to leave the
store you can see in this video
the violent confrontation that
resulted and she says the vandalism
is not something that happens.
Only once in awhile, it's
every day, every
single day. I would say every hour you know,
so it's ongoing on Broadway.
On going on going and I'll be
honest with you. I'm not blaming
the Sacramento PD or anything.
They came here many times.
It's like someone put the cup in the back.
They can't do much
still. ROM says when he does need
the police response is limited.
He told me about such an incident
would not really threatening
me so I'm in the corner there.
I'm on camera too right?
I call the police came next day.
Ram also says he's seen.
First hand how the public has gotten
smart to LAX laws and punishment.
There were some girls, right?
And there were teenage girls.
I'm assuming they were like 5 or 6.
Deborah Calculator,
you know what they told me? We can.
Each five of us can take 9 or $50
of each things from the store.
You can do nothing.
It's impossible to say why the
girls chose that dollar amount,
but Prop 47, which was passed in 2014,
made stealing goods worth less than
$950 a misdemeanor instead of a felony.
I asked the Sacramento
Police Department about this,
but did not receive a direct response.
They did, however,
say they would show up if a suspect
remained on scene regardless
of if damage was minor Prasad.
Had similar experiences
with emboldened criminals,
then that scared of anybody.
You know, even with pre call
the police you get this.
They don't want to show up over here
they call us back like in a couple
hours to check if they're still here
and if not then they never show up.
This was illustrated last Sunday when a
thief stole money out of the cash register.
You can see the thief linger around
even pay for a drink with his card,
then lunged at the cash register,
grabbing as much as he could
before making off on a bike.
If you came with their intention or whatever,
you know, but I called the cops.
They said I'll file online report.
We asked the Sacramento
Police Department for an interview
to respond to all of this.
They send us an email saying in the
majority of vandalism calls when there
is property damage only people are
referred to an online reporting process.
They say the reports are forwarded to
the Detective Division and if there are
specific things that can be investigated,
detectives would follow up.
Prasad says she hasn't heard
anything from the police yet.
This despite the fact the thief used his.
Own card to purchase a drink and
there's surveillance footage.
And Prasad says she even saved the drink
up in case police wanted fingerprints.
The lady told me, oh.
But they don't need it
because it's online report.
They can do nothing so they won't
attend to their fingerprint. Is it OK?
I hope something can be done about this,
you know homeless is increasing
and increasing overtime and.
Hopefully I mean we're just
risking our life and that's
it. Yeah, and every shot to multiple
city officials about these reports,
and I'm waiting to hear back.
I have an interview with
Councilmember Katie Valenzuela and
the Council member for that area,
and that's scheduled for next week.