Smash- and- grab greeting for Senate hopeful
Add former Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland to the long list of San Francisco tourists whose cars were broken into this year.
Strickland, who was in town to raise money for his 2016 U. S. Senate bid, briefly left his rental car unattended near Washington and Battery streets Wednesday afternoon. When he came back, a window was smashed out and a couple of pieces of luggage were stolen from the back.
As Strickland was told by a tow- truck driver, who was called for assistance in a pinch, rentals are the prime target of thieves in San Francisco these days.
Police Capt. David Lazar, who oversees the district where Strickland got his rude welcome, tells us the area has an average of 300 auto breakins a month. A large number are indeed rentals, he said, particularly in the touristy areas of crooked Lombard Street, Fisherman’s Wharf and the Embarcadero.
Auto boosting has become a citywide problem, with 7,553 incidents reported in the first quarter of the year — up 38 percent from the same period last year. Cops attribute the rise to petty criminals having discovered that there’s far less risk of being caught and prosecuted for a quick smash- and- grab from a rental car than, say, dealing drugs or stealing a cell phone.
And rentals are easy to spot — typically, they have a bar code on the window.
Lazar says he and his officers “are doing everything we can to educate tourists that they can’t leave anything of value in their cars.”
Data provided to us by the district attorney’s office show that of the 100 arrests by Lazar’s Central Station cops for auto
boosting in 2014, fewer than half resulted in charges being filed. In two dozen of those cases, however, the suspects were charged with unrelated crimes or their probation was revoked.
Unless caught in the act of smashing and grabbing, someone holding items taken from a car is likely to be charged only with receiving stolen property. And under last year’s Proposition 47, pushed by D. A. George Gascón and passed by state voters, being arrested with less than $ 950 worth of stolen property amounts to a misdemeanor.
Meaning the best the cops can do is issue a citation. Seasick: Embattled San Francisco Port Commissioner Mel Murphy — who is in hot water over his sliding house and numerous other alleged building code violations in his private business — has taken a medical leave from his waterfront job.
The well- connected developer, former president of the Building Inspection Commission and onetime ally of Mayor Ed Lee is being sued by the city attorney for numerous alleged code violations at his building projects, including his house that slid down a hill on Twin Peaks in 2013.
Shortly before being sued, Murphy stopped attending Port Commission meetings. His last meeting was on Jan. 13.
Four months later, as the legal and political pressure continued to rise, Lee sent a one- sentence note to Murphy asking him to resign from the commission immediately. The mayor never followed up, however, leading some critics to conclude that he was giving his old friend a pass that he didn’t extend to, say, Ross Mirkarimi, whom Lee tried to fire after the sheriff was charged in a domesticviolence case.
Now comes word that shortly after the mayor sent his letter, Murphy submitted a note from a doctor asking that he be excused from Port Commission meetings until July for an unspecified health reason. In the meantime, Murphy and his attorney, Andrew Zacks, are trying to work out a deal with the city.
Zacks declined to comment, other than to say, “Mel regrets that he is unable to attend the Port Commission hearings as the result of his medical issues.” Candid camera: Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi is charging that Mayor Ed Lee’s decision not to come up with $ 242,000 for body cameras for deputies “subverts our mission in improving safety, accountability and transparency.”
The mayor’s office points out that the sheriff’s budget includes money for improved surveillance cameras in the jails. Why shell out extra money for double camera coverage?
Because, Mirkarimi says, “body cameras can help protect staff and inmates” by creating “a level of transparency not provided by fixed cameras.”
Mirkarimi declined to say how many surveillance cameras the jails now have.
Incidentally, former interim Sheriff Vicki Hennessy, who is running for Mirkarimi’s job, also supports body cameras for the troops, said campaign spokeswoman Maureen Erwin.
But, Erwin said, “she is not part of the budget request and is not going to comment on it.”