Shelby Steele is an author and filmmaker who works at Stanford’s Hoover Institution. Today, his son Eli Steele, who is also a filmmaker, posted a thread on Twitter about his most recent experience in San Francisco.

He wrote: “You hear about how bad San Francisco is. I was filming a shot of my father , Shelby Steele, and in the ten minutes we were gone our SUV was broken into and nearly $15k of cameras stolen. Called 911 & they hung up twice.”

You hear about how bad San Francisco is. I was filming a shot of my father , Shelby Steele, and in the ten minutes we were gone our SUV was broken into and nearly $15k of cameras stolen. Called 911 & they hung up twice. pic.twitter.com/g0X71Raw4X

— Eli Steele (@Hebro_Steele) June 14, 2023

Eli says the stole more than $25k worth of camera gear. That’s not including the damage to his rental car. There’s surveillance video of the thieves robbing the car. You can see their license plate but he says SF police haven’t shown up.

Found more equipment missing. Now about $25k -$30k. Plus rental car damage. SF police doing nothing. It’s so bad that my friend is calling gang members for help. pic.twitter.com/Qba1yrTnEp

— Eli Steele (@Hebro_Steele) June 14, 2023

While dealing with our situation we see more robbers pulling up in a Mercedes and looking into cars. We yelled at them. They pulled a gun on my friend. He’s filing his report now. Not one police officer showed up. pic.twitter.com/BGIlullToR

— Eli Steele (@Hebro_Steele) June 14, 2023

The officer they eventually spoke to was brutally honest. Nothing will happen. She told them, “The police have been defanged.”

On Monday, we attended San Francisco’s meeting on reparations — see my father in tan jacket in photo. Some of the committee members were arguing for more defunding of the police. Just crazy. pic.twitter.com/i41AQwjwKc

— Eli Steele (@Hebro_Steele) June 14, 2023

This sort of theft is extremely common in San Francisco. Back in March, Jazz wrote about a CNN crew that was on assignment for a story and had their car robbed despite the fact that they had private security. There’s actually a Twitter account called SF Car Break ins which does nothing but highlight these stories on a daily basis. One of those stories involved a local reporter for an NBC affiliate.

🧵

1) I met a woman today in tears and her story should frustrate, sadden, and anger every person in #SanFrancisco.

It all started this morning.

My wife took our daughter for a stroll and found a line of bags strewn along the sidewalk, covered in broken glass. pic.twitter.com/sCtc2XZ76O

— Bigad Shaban (@BigadShaban) May 23, 2023

3) My wife noticed an address on some of the belongings, so I drove across town to the home. I met an elderly woman, who told me her daughter's car was broken into yesterday. She put her daughter on speakerphone. I explain what happened & offer to meet her at the mound of stuff.

— Bigad Shaban (@BigadShaban) May 23, 2023

5) I arrive about the same time as the woman. She gets out of her car – window still missing – and immediately starts crying. She just bought her car yesterday, hours before it was broken into. She tells me her daughter slept in her bed all night. The break-in had her terrified. pic.twitter.com/wM04VHkE0h

— Bigad Shaban (@BigadShaban) May 23, 2023

7) She circles the pile of stuff on the sidewalk but looks hesitant to start rummaging through it to see what exactly the thieves may have left behind.

"I'm worried about reaching inside," she said. "There could be used needles."

— Bigad Shaban (@BigadShaban) May 23, 2023

9) "This city is so hard," she said. "It's so hard."

After we say goodbye, I can't help but think about the 63 other people in San Francisco who will likely have their cars broken into today.

Who are they…what are their stories…and what are we doing about it?

— Bigad Shaban (@BigadShaban) May 23, 2023

Here he is talking about this story on the air. The first clip is the story and the second one is about San Francisco’s break in stats which are double what they are in other major cities.

12) So how does the rate of car break-ins in San Francisco compare to other major cities?

Data we obtained last year shows the rate of smash-and-grabs in SF is double that of D.C. and Dallas, and more than triple Los Angeles. pic.twitter.com/yk096CoSVa

— Bigad Shaban (@BigadShaban) May 25, 2023

Of course there are people who want to argue the point but Bigad Shaban has the receipts.

Car break-ins occur at a significantly higher rate in San Francisco than other major metropolitan areas. Last year, we collected crime data from other cities and found the rate of smash-and-grabs in SF is about double that of DC and Dallas and more then triple Los Angeles. pic.twitter.com/txFTVH1q8W

— Bigad Shaban (@BigadShaban) May 25, 2023

This is sad. There is no reason people should have to put up with this dozens of times a day. But actions have consequences and some of the same leaders who got on the defund the police bandwagon in 2020 are now whining about not having enough police support in their districts. You can’t have your defund the police cake and eat it too. San Francisco chose this and it will have to make better choices to get out of this mess.

Finally, it’s not just motorists who are being hurt by this. The San Francisco Chronicle published a story today about small businesses in Oakland who have stopped accepting cash because of the constant thefts.

After suffering three burglaries in two years, workers at Asha Tea House — a small shop in Uptown Oakland — made a wrenching but practical decision: They stopped accepting cash.

“We’re hoping it solves the problem,” assistant manager Angel Her said on Friday morning, standing over a flat-screen register bearing a small “credit cards only” sign…

As crime spikes in shopping districts throughout Oakland, more businesses are forbidding cash transactions — a move so controversial in San Francisco that the Board of Supervisors passed an ordinance in 2019 requiring all merchants to take dollars. The legislation emphasizes “San Francisco’s ethos of inclusivity,” which extends to people who are denied credit or cannot get bank accounts.

Of course San Francisco will stand in the way of business owners trying to protect themselves. But eventually all of this adds up. That’s why you have something like 17 major retailers calling it quits in SF over the past six months. Some of those retailers won’t say precisely why but others have made it clear that constant theft and dealing with deranged street people all day every day takes a toll.