Stunning video captures a brazen theft at a San Francisco Walgreens, visual representation of the rampant retail crime in the city over recent years.
The shocking recording taken Monday afternoon by KGO Reporter Lyanne Melendez shows a man in a Walgreens at the corner of Gough St. and Fell St. unabashedly filling a trash bag with various items off a shelf, undeterred by another patron and security guard watching and filming him with their phones.
The man nonchalantly bikes out the door after briefly avoiding the security guard’s attempts to knock the bag from his hand as he rode away.
Walgreens has closed 17 stores in San Francisco over the past five years, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Theft at the store’s San Francisco locations are up four times than the national average and the company spends 35 times more on security in the city than elsewhere.
State Supervisor Ahsha Safai held a hearing last month addressing the surge in retail crimes, and called on San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin and the police department to have a more coordinated response.
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