Chronicle Editorial Board: Spinning for Progressives

The Chronicle is feeling what he's feeling.

We're used to reading editorials where writers cherry-pick facts, misrepresent the positions of opponents, and warn of apocalypse if their advice isn't followed.

But at least major newspapers don't make up facts that are foundational to an argument, or so we thought until we read the Chronicle's take on Chesa Boudin's recall (yesterday's post below). [bold added]

Editorial: No, California didn’t just send a message on crime — only voter apathy

Voter turnout was barely at 26% in San Francisco the morning after the election. It was even worse across most of the state. Sure, ballots will continue trickling in for days. But the story will stay the same.

Voters weren’t “desperate for change,” as one Los Angeles Times website headline put it. They couldn’t be bothered...

But it was apathy and resignation, not overt anger or a definitive vision, that ruled the day in San Francisco and across California in Tuesday’s election.

But is the Chronicle correct about voter apathy being high?

In an election-analysis article, the same newspaper says that the turnout to recall Chesa Boudin was higher than in 2019, when he was elected.

Unlike Tuesday’s election, which ended up being largely about a single candidate, the 2019 election asked voters to cast their ballots for the mayor, D.A., city attorney, public defender, sheriff and several other races in the year before a presidential election...the Department of Elections is now anticipating turnout among registered voters to hit 46% — higher than the 42% rate seen in the 2019 election, and a lot higher than the 36% rate for the February school board recall.

As of this writing 123,926 votes have been counted, and 74,335 (59.98%) of them were to oust Chesa Boudin.

When all the mail-in votes are finally tabulated, the total is expected to be above 200,000.

The same chart for 2019 shows that Chesa Boudin was elected because he received 68,575 votes (35.71%) out of 192,053, the leader out of four candidates through "ranked choice" voting.

With only 57% of the 2022 ballots counted, there are already more "no" votes against Chesa Boudin than voted for him in 2019.

Sounds like the San Francisco electorate is getting less apathetic, but we're not professional interpreters of facts like the Chronicle editorial board.

Two-and-One-Half Years Was Enough

Chesa waved at cars. The voters waved back. (Chron)

When Chesa Boudin was elected to the office of San Francisco District Attorney 2½ years ago, we half-jokingly asked if San Francisco was headed in the same direction as Caracas.

Since then his Progressive policies have failed so miserably in the eyes of San Francisco voters that they weren't willing to wait until November, 2023 but removed him from office in yesterday's recall election.

San Francisco voters overwhelmingly voted to remove District Attorney Chesa Boudin from office on Tuesday, favoring a recall effort that argued his progressive reforms were too lenient and made the city less safe.

Boudin trailed by about 20 percentage points Tuesday evening, according to the latest figures from city elections officials. Around 60% of San Franciscans who cast ballots voted to recall him...

Boudin was part of a wave of progressive prosecutors who took power in American cities, channelling the energy of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Boudin eliminated cash bail, which favors wealthier defendants; helped divert more defendants to treatment instead of trials; and pursued criminal prosecutions against nine police officers.

As expected, the Boudin campaign blamed Republicans. Even the San Francisco Chronicle was incredulous:

Boudin blamed the recall on conservative forces, pointing to the fundraising against him, but only 7% of voters register as Republican in San Francisco. Rather, he split Democrats in a city where many residents are frustrated with chronic problems, including high rates of burglary and drug overdoses.

Some of the recall team’s most vocal advocates were Democrats, who said they believed in Boudin’s overarching goals but said his leadership had created an office in disarray and a system that let offenders off without meaningful consequences.

Since the rest of us in the Bay Area had to accept Chesa Boudin's 2019 election, we tried to make the best of it by satisfying our curiosity about "anti-carceral" policies. Would devoting more funds to mental health, substance abuse, and homelessness reduce crime?

Each side tried to show statistics in their favor, but the public perception was that there was an explosion in lawlessness across the board.

As for your humble blogger, the 18-year-old Toyota Camry has become less reliable. I'm looking forward not having to drive it whenever we go into the City.

Fisherman's Wharf: Surprisingly Pleasant

We only go to Fisherman's Wharf to meet out-of-town visitors, but how long has it been since we have had those? (Answer: four years.)

Given the pandemic, the lockdown, and the publicity about San Francisco's homelessness, property-crime outbreak, high prices, and filthy streets, our friends and relatives have gone elsewhere. Until tonight.

The sojourn was surprisingly pleasant.

Despite the lifting of pandemic restrictions the Wharf was far from "normal"; the streets and sidewalks were the emptiest I had ever seen. And they were very clean; we didn't have to watch where we were stepping.

A pleasant dinner at Boudin's was followed by a stroll to Ghirardelli Square, where there was only a five-minute wait for a table at the ice cream parlor.

On the way back to the parking garage we passed by the first and only homeless tent we saw tonight.

I am sure that the police, like their counterparts in Honolulu, have something to do with keeping the area attractive to tourists. Let's hope that they keep doing it when the crowds come back.

San Francisco: Better and Harder

Chesa Boudin (KQED photo)

San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin has taken the heat for the explosion of crime ("San Francisco gun violence rose last year, with shootings up 33%") in San Francisco.

But leniency towards criminals was only one part of his campaign. Another promise was "holding officers accountable for wrongdoing."

SF Police Chief Bill Scott is now terminating an agreement to cooperate in police-use-of-force investigations with the DA's office.

Chief Bill Scott (Chron photo)

Chief Scott claims that prosecutors withheld exculpatory evidence in the trial of Officer Terrance Stangel, who beat a man with a baton. [bold added]

Nicole Pifari, an attorney for Stangel, claimed that the District Attorney’s Office withheld incriminating evidence from police as they investigated the man Stangel allegedly beat, Dacari Spiers. That evidence — that Spiers was allegedly beating his girlfriend prior to the altercation with Stangel — may have helped lead to criminal charges against Spiers, Pifari argued.

In her motion to dismiss the case, Pifari said [Magen] Hayashi, the district attorney’s investigator, failed to inform the police department of a follow-up interview with a witness who reported seeing Spiers assaulting his girlfriend. The defense alleged that Hayashi then lied about it by saying she had no further contact with the witness when providing police with an update on the investigation.

Pifari claimed Stangel was justified in his use of force under the circumstances.

In responding to Pifari’s questions under oath Thursday, Hayashi said she was pressured to sign the affidavit against Stangel after removing exculpatory information.

Asked who pressured her, she said, “it was a general understanding in my experience in this office, if you don’t sign these things you’ll be fired.”

Police are held to high standards of ethical behavior. The DA's office is also held to high standards and in its oversight role has allegedly broken them. Meanwhile, pity poor Magen Hayashi, who will be thrown under the bus because Chesa Boudin will act shocked to discover that anyone in his office would lie on an affidavit.

In San Francisco criminals, who are regularly released without bail, enjoy the bonus of law enforcement at loggerheads with itself.

Whatever his personal beliefs in what's going on in the once-beautiful City, your humble blogger is a believer in democracy. San Francisco is getting what it voted for, good and hard.

Burglars Caught and Released: the Policy San Franciscans Voted For

Partial snapshot of Tyler Howerton's arrests

Your humble blogger stopped posting on property crime in San Francisco nine months ago. The City didn't seem to be doing anything to stem the tide, and, of course, crime has escalated. We're starting to follow the issue again because there are faint glimmerings of a shift in attitudes.

The Chronicle highlights the futility of San Francisco's soft-on-property crime approach. Police arrested Nicholas Tiller and Tyler Howerton for stealing expensive bicycles. [bold added]

According to documents reviewed by The Chronicle, both men had extensive criminal histories: Howerton had been arrested seven times on suspicion of burglary since 2019; Tiller had been arrested 13 times in burglary cases since 2013. Both were on probation at the time they were apprehended last week.

What to do about the two men is a quandary for a city pursuing criminal justice reform while debating how to manage rates of property crime that for years have been among the highest in the nation...Last week, Superior Court Judge Brian Ferrall ordered Howerton released from jail with GPS monitoring...

Tiller remains in jail. Attorneys representing Tiller and Howerton declined to comment.

In San Francisco burglary is a lucrative occupation because, if caught, the perpetrator is released to steal again. Many thieves have upgraded their skills and equipment because the rewards have become greater, while the risk of imprisonment has nearly disappeared.

the crimes are serious, but not violent. The perpetrators are often methodical, repeat offenders with tools and expertise. They know how to drill holes and use wires to open garage doors; they don’t have the desperation of people who steal packages from porches, or even of the drug store shoplifters who grab toiletries from shelves and toss them into garbage bags.

And in the case of the most recent arrest, both defendants have long rap sheets. Tiller even made headlines in 2016, for participating in a robbery of the Make a Wish Foundation at 400 Market St. and stealing — among other things — a scooter autographed by former Giants right fielder Hunter Pence.

Boudin and other policymakers believe that incarceration fails to address the root causes of property crime, such as poverty and addiction.

A sensible counter-argument is that incarceration keeps them from robbing more people and may even have a deterrent effect on others criminals, actual and potential.

But San Franciscans disagree with the latter point of view. They keep voting in the Progressives who created the "humane" policy of repeatedly releasing people like Nicholas Tiller and Tyler Howerton to ply their trade. As we said last year, they're getting what they wanted, good and hard.

Preternatural Positivity

Replica of the Model-T ambulance he drove in France.

We prepped for Saturday's expedition to San Francisco by packing water, jackets, masks, and hand-sanitizer.

The Walt Disney Family Museum still requires face coverings and social distancing; also, it distributes plastic-wrapped headphones and styluses to each patron for plugging into the audio jacks and for using the touchscreens.

We traveled up to the Presidio in our 17-year-old Camry, as we did on pre-pandemic trips to San Francisco.

Perhaps we were being overly cautious due to the regular reports of auto-smash-and-grabs. According to critics of the SF District Attorney these burglaries are not being prosecuted because his belief that lives are more important than property translates to not prosecuting property crimes at all.

(available on Amazon)

We had no trouble with our car, which was in a parking space clearly visible from the museum.

Speaking of cars, one of the great influences on Walt Disney's life was the year he spent in France as an ambulance driver just after World War I. So eager was he to volunteer, he adjusted the birth year on his passport from "1901" to "1900" so that he would meet the minimum age requirement; however, due to illness, he wasn't shipped out until after Armistice Day on November 11, 1918.

During his time in France Walt Disney honed his drawing skills and acquired material for his cartoons, as well as life experience:

Lesjack leaves us with a decent look at Walt’s life during the World War I years that foreshadow his choices later in life. The insight provided tells us about Walt’s thoughts before, during and after the war. In a few cases, Walt shows a preternatural positivity that would last throughout his life, even against hardships and loss.

That's what we all need--a little preternatural positivity. But I'm still driving the clunker to San Francisco.

San Francisco Getting What They Wanted: One Year Later

Chesa Boudin (KQED photo)

It's been a year since public defender Chesa Boudin was elected to the position of San Francisco District Attorney. In keeping with Mr. Boudin's progressive philosophy (after his parents were jailed he was raised by Weather Underground icons Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, and he worked for Venezuela's Hugo Chavez) crimes against property are accorded a low priority, and "minor" crimes such as car break-ins are not prosecuted at all. The results were easily foreseen by anyone with any life experience.

Smashed car windows have become so common in San Francisco that many people don’t even blink as they step over the crushed glass. And those victimized by break-ins frequently lament a lack of response from police and prosecutors.

San Francisco resident Jesse Hunt posted a video of twelve cars parked on his block, all with smashed windows.

After viewing the video, San Francisco Police Department spokesman, Officer Adam Lobsinger, said it appeared to show the 1700 block of Green Street and that the department had not yet received any reports by late morning.

IMHO, the car owners are behaving rationally. Why bother filing a report when the police aren't going to do anything about it?

As we've commented before, San Francisco residents keep electing guys like Chesa Boudin to public office. The ones who don't like the current state of affairs are leaving, so expect more of the same indefinitely.

San Francisco: Getting What They Wanted - Part 2

The 730 Market Walgreens closed in March

Chronicle writer Phil Matier succinctly summarizes the codification of California's enlightened attitude toward property crime:

Under California law, theft of less than $950 in goods is treated as a nonviolent misdemeanor. The maximum sentence for petty theft is six months in county jail. But most of the time the suspect is released with conditions attached.

So how's that working out for the citizens? [bold added]

After months of seeing its shelves repeatedly cleaned out by brazen shoplifters, the Walgreens at Van Ness and Eddy in San Francisco is getting ready to close.

“The last day is Nov. 11,” Walgreens spokesman Phil Caruso said.

The drugstore, which serves many older people who live in the Opera Plaza area, is the seventh Walgreens to close in the city since 2019...

In February, the local news website Hoodline reported that an employee at the Market Street store said the store couldn’t cope with the shoplifting, which was costing the company $1,000 a day.

I do empathize with the law-abiding citizens of San Francisco, but they did vote for these laws and a District Attorney who calls for even more leniency.

One might call it karma.

San Francisco: Getting What They Wanted

Jan. 8: Mayor Breed swears in Chesa Boudin (Chron photo)

In November we commented on the election of Chesa Boudin to the District Attorney's office of San Francisco.

Mr. Boudin was a public defender and had never prosecuted a case. Clues to how he would run the DA's office lay in his upbringing by Weather Underground parents, adoption by Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, and his employment in Hugo Chavez' Venezuela.

Chesa Boudin has begun his term by firing prosecutors--which is his right, btw--as he starts to keep his "promise[s] to confront racial disparities in the criminal justice system, work to end mass incarceration, and hold police more accountable in cases of brutality."

Those fired include:

[Michael] Swart is a hard-charging homicide prosecutor known for his brash style in the courtroom. [Tom] Ostly was an attorney in the Crime Strategies Unit. He was in the middle of prosecuting a multimillion-dollar fencing bust announced last month by interim District Attorney Suzy Loftus.

Here's the nut: [bold added]

Boudin also promised to focus on violent crime, leaving many in the office questioning why he let go many of his most experienced felony attorneys.

Well, San Francisco voters elected him, and now they're going to get what he promised good and hard.

As for non-San Francisco visitors, never park your late-model vehicle there; it will be broken into with impunity, since there is zero chance of prosecution for property crimes. BTW, here is Mr. Boudin's solution to break-ins:

Boudin is proposing the city set up a private-public partnership to start a mobile auto-glass repair operation that would respond directly to the scene of burglaries and repair the broken windows on the spot for “a fraction of the cost” of window repair shops.