SFC13557
NES Member
Recalling San Francisco’s district attorney would do a lot to restore order.
by Andy Kessler in today's WSJ.And they wonder why citizens buy guns and ammo. Can you imagine if this guy walked into one of our houses?
San Francisco
"As I walked to lunch last week in Little Saigon, a few blocks from City Hall, I hurried across Eddy Street to avoid an obvious group of drug dealers. The sidewalks were filthy, filled with homeless tents and a god-awful smell. Distracted, I almost tripped over a squatting man sticking a hypodermic needle between his toes. Two cops leaned against a police car nearby. Meanwhile, pedestrians lawfully waited at a traffic light before crossing. Why bother?
No wonder Chesa Boudin, if polls are correct, will be recalled as San Francisco district attorney on Tuesday via Proposition H. He’s a big source of the city’s current rot.
I’m reluctant to convict someone based on his parents’ background, but Mr. Boudin’s provides many clues. Former members of the Weather Underground domestic terrorist group, his parents were jailed and convicted for being getaway drivers in the 1981 Brink’s robbery and murders. He was then raised by the Weather Underground’s Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, who, you may remember, were friends with Barack Obama. Mr. Boudin says he didn’t learn to read until age 9, later graduated from Yale, Oxford and Yale Law School, and even served as an interpreter for Hugo Chávez, Venezuela’s socialist president, although that somehow was left off his LinkedIn profile. He supports San Francisco as a “sanctuary city.”
In November 2019, Mr. Boudin was elected district attorney after running on a platform of “decarceration” and ending cash bail. Asian-Americans were big supporters. Not anymore. After leading a successful February recall of three school-board members—one member, Alison Collins, said that merit is “racist”—Asian-Americans in San Francisco are now fed up with increased personal and property crimes against them that often go unprosecuted. Flaw and disorder.
San Francisco has seen a rash of robberies. Stealing items valued at less than $950 is considered a misdemeanor. Last fall, organized “smash and grab” looters hit Louis Vuitton and other luxury stores. Eleven Walgreens have closed since 2019. In a remarkably still-open CVS near Eddy Street, nearly every item is locked behind plexiglass. Is this the future?
Don’t be fooled by the Orwellian newspeak of the “unhoused” that completely ignores the problem of mental illness and addiction rampant in San Francisco. Count 640 drug overdose deaths in 2021—more than Covid deaths. These were predominantly from fentanyl, yet the district attorney had zero convictions for dealing fentanyl and only three convictions of any kind for drug dealing vs. more than 90 in 2018 under George Gascón (now Los Angeles County’s district attorney). Instead, according to the San Francisco Standard, 80% of Mr. Boudin’s narcotics convictions were classified as “accessory after the fact.” Why? So dealers wouldn’t be subject to deportation. Personnel is policy. Electing a soft-on-crime, illegal-immigrant-friendly district attorney produced more tent cities and drug-overdose deaths. Shameful.
How do we fix this crime and homeless problem? It starts with a strong will and resolve to do something about it. Instead, the well-intentioned continue to throw good money after bad. In 2018, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff put up $2 million of his own money not for any specific homeless program, but instead, right out of the progressive playbook, to fund a ballot measure forcing many San Francisco employers to pay a “homelessness gross receipts tax” to raise a combined $300 million annually. Has it helped? Homelessness was up 9% in the San Francisco Bay Area over the last three years, though it was down by 3.5% (about 280 people) in the city of San Francisco. Hey, maybe the $300 million tax works? Not so fast, the decline is less than drug overdose deaths.
This has gotten personal for me. My family and I live 30 miles from San Francisco. A homeless man walked into our house on a Tuesday morning, high as a kite with sopping-wet pants and smelling like a marinated skunk—even our dog didn’t bark. I strongly said, “Get. Out. Of. My. House.” My wife called 911. Eventually, he left. The police wouldn’t arrest him until a Hazmat unit (!) arrived to clean him up. And of course he ended up getting released. When we asked neighbors who saw him walking around that morning why they didn’t say something, the typical response was, “Oh, I couldn’t do that.” Gee, thanks.
Money is wasted unless there is a will to do something. Prosecute narcotics crimes and cut off the flow of the lethal stuff. Increase help for the mentally ill. Find temporary housing for families. Increase education. Provide jobs. When you look the other way at tent cities in Washington, Boston, Madison, Wis., Portland, Ore., Seattle, Los Angeles and elsewhere, you get more of them. We need a strong backbone to take our streets back.
California is more concerned with renewable energy, electric-car subsidies and paper-straw mandates than doing anything about crime, homelessness or junkies shooting up in broad daylight. Recalling Chesa Boudin might be a first step toward change."
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