The San Francisco School Board recall election has been heating up in the last few months, recently reaching the necessary number of signatures to qualify for the ballot.
But some may have wanted to prevent that, even going as far as to place themselves into the fray.
San Francisco police arrested a man accused of stealing San Francisco school board recall signatures on Tuesday.
Jason Kruta, 31, of San Francisco, was charged with the theft of a recall petition, a misdemeanor violation of the state election code. He surrendered at San Francisco County jail after a warrant for his arrest was issued, according to reporting by the San Francisco Chronicle.
Kruta was identified through social media and was then reported to police by Kit Lam, who was manning the recall petition table on the street corner during the incident.
"I see Jason as a radical who was willing to commit a crime for his cause," said Lam.
On May 30, Lam was by himself at the table gathering signatures in the Richmond District at the Clement Street Farmer’s Market near 3rd Avenue for the Recall the S.F. School Board campaign.
While wearing a COVID-19 face mask, the suspect approached Lam, saying he wanted to sign the recall petition.
Lam gave him a clipboard with the form and turned to help another person. When he turned back, the suspect had thrown the clipboard beneath a parked vehicle and walked away. Lam confronted him, starting an argument with the suspect denying wrongdoing. A passerby filmed the exchange.
When someone else retrieved the clipboard, pages were missing. After Lam kept arguing with the suspect, he eventually handed over the pages, which he’d tucked into the back of his jeans. He then walked away pushing his cart.
"The signatures that he took include Chinese Americans. He was trying to take away our voices," said Lam, 45, an immigrant from Hong Kong and an address fraud investigator for the San Francisco Unified School District. "It’s a threat to our democracy."
Kruta’s arraignment is set for 8:30 a.m. Oct. 28.
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