A CNN reporter becomes a victim herself while covering crime on the streets of San Francisco. A security guard was even watching.
And suddenly a CNN reporter was able to report from her own experience how bad crime is on the streets of San Francisco: correspondent Kyung Lah’s rental car in the middle of the city was broken into in broad daylight. And that of all things while she was researching the displeasure in the city because of rampant crime. On the Internet, some users react sympathetically, many fatalistically, some angrily – and some with malice.
The journalist reported on Twitter: “I was robbed!” She shared a photo of the car after the perpetrators struck in a flash: It may have taken four seconds to steal the bags from the car while she and a colleague were conducting an interview.
San Francisco is a beautiful city and she loves being there, she wrote. “But if you visit this city, you should know that even hiring security to monitor your car is not enough there.” The security staff tried to grab the crooks, but in the end couldn’t get any more than a photo of the perpetrators’ driving away car with its license plate.
Airport staff knew the problem well
In the car was her bag with identification and passport. Therefore, at first she worried about her return journey. But at the airport she experienced a surprise: “Because so many people have their cars broken into and documents are stolen, SouthwestAir is used to the problem of missing ID cards and gave me my ticket smoothly after a short security check,” the reporter described her experience in a meanwhile deleted tweet.
In US media, San Francisco is often portrayed as a crime hotspot. The pharmacy and drugstore chain Walgreens caused a stir. The company closed several locations around the city because it could no longer cope with shoplifting. Walgreens said theft damage in San Francisco is five times the average and security costs are 46 times higher. Local media, however, reported doubts about the numbers after researching the police.
The whole thing also has a political component: Last June, the democratic Chesa Boudin was voted out of office after two years. He was accused of not acting hard enough against crime, petty criminals had nothing to fear in the city. “Everyone who lives here or comes to visit is a potential victim,” was the core of the message of the vote-out campaign.
For reporter Kyung Lah, the strong polarization of the USA on this topic was also clear in the comments and her post. People there maliciously write that they only got what was chosen. After all, the state of California is also in democratic hands and is considered to be particularly liberal, a horror for very conservative Americans. After all: The reporter has her identity papers back, they were found.
