California man tracked $24,000 in stolen camera gear to known hotspot. Police still haven't shuttered it
San Francisco police didn't raid or shutter a known hotspot where people sell stolen goods, located just blocks away from a local precinct, even after a film student tracked his $24,000 worth of stolen camera gear there.
"San Francisco is a five-alarm fire when it comes to property crimes like organized retail theft, auto burglary and car thefts," Schuck told Fox News in an email. "The organized criminal enterprises operate freely."
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The film student was eating lunch in Oakland, California, when his cameras, lenses and drone were stolen from his rental car. Using Apple AirTags he'd put in the camera cases, Schuck traced the stolen goods to neighboring San Francisco before he called the police.
"Oh yeah, that's a known major fencing operation," the SFPD officer told Shuck. "Everyone in the Bay Area knows they can come and offload their stolen goods there."
"I don't blame the individual police officers," the film student told Fox News. "If the police were actually supported—as in properly backed up by the Mayor, the District Attorney, and the Board of Supervisors—the SFPD and other law enforcement agencies would have the freedom to investigate and prosecute criminals."
Schuck has not recovered any of his stolen gear, he added.
There have been over 14,000 thefts from vehicles in San Francisco this year, according to the latest police data. The city has the highest car break-in rate per capita in the country, the San Francisco Chronicle reported, and police only solve 1-in-100 car break-ins. Further, auto thefts are up 12% year-over-year.
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A car owner in San Francsico posts a sign in their car window asking for the windows not to be broken. (Lea Suzuki/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)
The stolen goods resale hotspot is in the heart of San Francisco's Tenderloin neighborhood, which has become infamous for open-air drug market and crime.
"And it's a block and a half, not even a block and a half from the Tenderloin Police Station," Schuck told KGO-TV. "How were you not raiding that place on a daily basis?"
Dean Preston, the San Francisco supervisor in charge of the Tenderloin neighborhood, held a hearing on car break-ins last week where he said "the city has made no noticeable progress." Still, Elon Musk called Preston — a democratic socialist — "the person most responsible for the destruction of San Francisco" and posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, that he "needs to be fired."
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Schuck also wants new city leaders.
"If the police know, and the Mayor knows, and the Supervisors know, and still this is allowed to operate.. This doesn't pass the smell test," he told Fox News in his email. "If everyone in political leadership, including Dean Preston, the Board Supervisor who represents the Tenderloin, were serious about solving the crime problem, they would have done it by now."
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"God, I just wish we had elected leaders in San Francisco who actually, I don't know, had some original ideas, and some backbone, and cleaned this place up," he wrote. "It's never been like this."
Preston, the San Francisco mayor and the San Francisco Police Department did not respond to requests for comment.
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