We’re blaming the wrong things for San Francisco retail theft -- please read

 

Chesa Boudin: We’re blaming the wrong things for San Francisco retail theft The criminal justice reform movement is facing strong headwinds in San Francisco. Please consider donating to our campaign to help keep our movement on the right track. Hi, it's Chesa Boudin.  Yesterday, I published an op-ed in SFGate addressing an important topic that’s been on the minds of many San Franciscans in recent months. Our city has been caught in the crossfire of attacks on criminal justice reform, thanks to several high-profile retail thefts of luxury stores around the Bay Area and across the country.   The all-too-common response in these circumstances is to call for more policing, a “crackdown” on crime, and attacks on progressive reform. I’m here to tell you that these knee-jerk reactions are not only short-sighted, they also won’t make us safer. You can read the full text of my op-ed on SFGate. But here’s the bottom line: We are at a tipping point in San Francisco; we’re in danger of making a decision driven by fear. We should not return to the days of locking up every person who commits any offense, no matter how small — a practice which not only failed to stop crime but also disproportionately impacted over-policed communities of color. Returning to those criminal justice policies offers no solution. We can have both safety and justice. I was elected in 2019 to keep San Francisco safe by focusing on prevention, supporting victims, and holding police accountable. The recall efforts are spending millions to reverse our movement, and I need your help. Please consider donating whatever amount is meaningful to you to help me fight back and keep San Francisco and our movement on the right track? It’s only through a multi-faceted approach to criminal justice reform that we can truly make our city the safe, thriving, and just city that it’s meant to be. I’m not done fighting, I hope you’ll keep fighting with me. I can’t thank you enough for your support, Chesa Boudin Chesa Boudin was elected District Attorney of San Francisco in 2019 to reform our criminal justice system. Now, right-wingers  want to reverse our progress and return our city to a time when innocent people were locked away and police acted with impunity.

20 Galli Drive
Ste A
Novato, CA 94949

 

Ad paid for by Friends of Chesa Boudin Opposing the Recall, FPPC #1437058, Financial Disclosures available at SFethics.org Committee major funding from: 1. Christian Larsen ($100,000) 2. Jessica McKellar ($50,000) 3. Laura Skelton ($50,000) Chesa Boudin: We’re blaming the wrong things for San Francisco retail theft An op-ed from San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin Chesa Boudin Dec. 21, 2021

San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin speaks to reporters before his swearing in ceremony in San Francisco, Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2020. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)Jeff Chiu/Associated Press

Over the past month, following several high-profile retail thefts of luxury stores around the Bay Area and across the country — including in San Francisco’s Union Square — our city has been caught in the crossfire of attacks on criminal justice reform. The all-too-common response to these crimes has been calls for more policing and attacks on progressive reforms, but these knee-jerk reactions are short-sighted. Achieving long-lasting public safety means we must think about these crimes differently.  If we truly care about preventing these crimes — as well as others — we must implement the systemic changes needed to make a real difference.  

Although these crimes have understandably frightened store employees and have shocked those who watched the viral videos capturing the events, these types of thefts with multiple people running into a store and grabbing items are not new — reports of similar crimes go back years. They happened during the Trump administration, and they happened in cities like Los Angeles under the previous reign of an anti-reform prosecutor. Nor are they isolated to the Bay Area or even to progressive cities — retailers in Texas, Minnesota, Florida and beyond have all been targets.

Despite this, some are falsely blaming criminal justice reforms — and reformers — for these offenses. Some have wrongly accused progressive prosecutors like me of not pursuing accountability despite my office’s high prosecution rates on these kinds of crimes and our transparency on filing rates. And some have pointed to laws like Proposition 47 — which reduced some felony theft and drug possession charges to misdemeanors — as somehow responsible for these crimes. These are red herrings.  

Though Fox News might have you think otherwise, the truth is that as District Attorney of San Francisco, I am holding those who have been arrested in connection with the crimes in Union Square accountable. My office filed felony charges against every person San Francisco police have arrested for these crimes. We presented evidence at a preliminary hearing, where a judge agreed there was probable cause to proceed on all felony charges aside from looting — a reminder that aggressive charges do not necessarily translate to convictions. Accountability is important, and my office is vigorously pursuing it, just as we have in 86% of the commercial burglary cases police presented to us this year. For context, police have made arrests in just 8.8% of commercial burglary cases this year.

Organized retail theft is not a problem that can be addressed solely by law enforcement solutions — which come after a crime has been committed. Public safety is a shared responsibility between police, city officials, prosecutors and the courts — and also requires the help of retailers, community groups, public health providers and community members.  State and city officials make laws; police investigate and arrest; district attorneys file charges and prosecute; and the courts release or detain and sentence. Prosecutors don’t receive cases until after a crime has occurred and police have made an arrest. Combating crime can only come through a sense of shared responsibility.

RSN: FOCUS: Juan Cole | The US Committed Cliocide (Destruction of History) in Iraq, and Even Returning Gilgamesh Can't Fix It

 

 

Live on the homepage now!
Reader Supported News

WE’RE NOT CLOSE ENOUGH  — We are actually significantly down from last month and the problems are sure to mount. Please do whatever you can to see to it that RSN can continue the important work it does. With urgency.
Marc Ash • Founder, Reader Supported News

Sure, I'll make a donation!

 

FOCUS: Juan Cole | The US Committed Cliocide (Destruction of History) in Iraq, and Even Returning Gilgamesh Can't Fix It
Juan Cole, Informed Comment
Cole writes: "The US government has returned 17,000 archeological artifacts to Iraq, many of them over 4,000 years old. According to Al Jazeera, the objects and tablets were looted from the country during the chaos of the Bush administration's rule of that country and were smuggled into the U.S., then sold at auction as though they were legitimate for purchase."

he US government has returned 17,000 archeological artifacts to Iraq, many of them over 4,000 years old. This, according to Al Jazeera The objects and tablets were looted from the country during the chaos of the Bush administration’s rule of that country and were smuggled into the U.S., then sold at auction as though they were legitimate for purchase.

Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi took the artifacts back to Iraq in a dedicated airplane this week after his visit to the White House.

Officials of the Bush administration were mostly philistines who had no idea that Iraq is home to some of the most glorious ancient civilizations, and, indeed, was among a handful of sites that invented what we now call civilization (cities, role differentiation, writing, astronomy and other sciences, mathematics, literature and epic).

This cultivated ignorance resulted in the destruction of a great deal of the history of Iraq, which can now never be recovered. I suggested the term “Cliocide” for what we Americans did to the country in wiping out so many documents. Clio is the muse of history, and I fear that in Iraq after the US got done with her she doesn’t look so good.

George W. Bush used demeaning terms for the Iraqis, at one point suggesting that they would soon be ready “to take the training wheels off,” as though he had anything to teach other peoples about good governance, and as though Iraqis were three years old.

Fox’s Tucker Carlson alleged that “white men” had created civilization when Iraqis were “illiterate monkeys.” Let’s not get into his racialized notion of ancient history, and just say, “No.”

Wikipedia notes that the US even used some mounds around cities like Babil (the ancient Babylon) as helipads and for other military uses. Those mounds contained libraries of clay tablets and other remnants of ancient civilization, and they were pulverized by the heavy machinery and helicopters! Wiki writes,

“US forces under the command of General James T. Conway of the I Marine Expeditionary Force were criticized for building the military base “Camp Alpha”, with a helipad and other facilities on ancient Babylonian ruins during the Iraq War. . . In a report of the British Museum’s Near East department, Dr. John Curtis described how parts of the archaeological site were levelled to create a landing area for helicopters, and parking lots for heavy vehicles.”

“Curtis wrote of the occupation forces:

‘They caused substantial damage to the Ishtar Gate, one of the most famous monuments from antiquity […] US military vehicles crushed 2,600-year-old brick pavements, archaeological fragments were scattered across the site, more than 12 trenches were driven into ancient deposits and military earth-moving projects contaminated the site for future generations of scientists.'”

The US never had enough forces in Iraq to supply basic order, and militias and mafias grew up that funded themselves by antiquities looting and smuggling. W.’s minions either couldn’t or wouldn’t do anything about it.

The late Donald Rumsfeld, then secretary of defense, actually went on television and denied there was any looting in Iraq.

The smuggled artifacts just returned by the Biden administration are a small fraction of the country’s — and the world’s — heritage that was looted, and much of the rest has been likely forever lost. And that’s not counting all the artifacts Bush crushed under helicopters and tanks.

I have a friend who is a specialist in ancient Iraq who seriously wondered whether its archeology is over with forever.

Of course, the guerrilla and civil wars and waves of terrorism Bush’s invasion set off in Iraq were much more grave than the archeological losses, but even though we are Americans it is worthwhile shedding a tear for what we did to civilization.

I visited the Iraqi national archives in Baghdad in 2013 and was gravely informed that the Ottoman-era documents for Baghdad Vilayet were in an annex that was bombed by the US Air Force. That is a period I write about as a historian. I wept.

Some 4,000 artifacts were bought by the evangelical Green family behind Hobby Lobby for their vanity project, the “Museum of the Bible” in Washington, D.C. The Greens were apparently insufficiently careful about provenance. These objects were seized by federal authorities and were among the pieces sent home with Mr. al-Kadhimi.

One of the clay tablets that was seized from the Museum of the Bible was the “dream tablet” of the Epic of Gilgamesh.

The tablet was doubly appropriated, physically stolen but then also put to an inappropriate use by an alien culture.

The Epic of Gilgamesh much preceded the Bible, which echoes it in places. But it did not belong in an evangelical museum anyway, because it is one of the first documents of humanist philosophy. It is in part about a quest for immortality, which inevitably fails. The message: you’ll just have to get used to your mortality. It is sort of the opposite of Christian fundamentalism.

READ MORE

 

Contribute to RSN

Follow us on facebook and twitter!

Update My Monthly Donation

PO Box 2043 / Citrus Heights, CA 95611