Thanksgiving has come and gone, and we have now moved into the time of year when Christmas shopping is in full swing for many Americans.
However, holiday-lovers in San Francisco will face a disturbing picture when they set out to buy their Christmas gifts this year.
On Monday, San Francisco resident and Life School founder Michelle Tandler posted a thread of images on Twitter showing downtown businesses boarding up their glass windows to protect from the rampant crime in the city.
This is what downtown San Francisco looks like right now.
(🧵1/x) pic.twitter.com/V1nrHs7Iqf
— Michelle Tandler (@michelletandler) November 29, 2021
— Michelle Tandler (@michelletandler) November 29, 2021
— Michelle Tandler (@michelletandler) November 29, 2021
— Michelle Tandler (@michelletandler) November 29, 2021
Later on in the thread, Tandler said the situation in San Francisco should be blamed on political leaders in the city. She called the city “lawless” and said American citizens who live there have been forced into “self-protection mode.”
Boarded windows > broken windows.
This is what happens when the criminal justice system doesn’t work.
San Francisco has become lawless and residents and businesses are going into self-protection mode.
The stats are fictitious. Nobody reports. People are hunkering down.
— Michelle Tandler (@michelletandler) November 29, 2021
According to the San Francisco Police Department website, homicide, assault, arson and larceny-theft are all up from Jan. 1 to Nov. 21, compared to the same period a year prior.
The largest increase from those four crimes was in larceny-theft, which is up a whopping 15.6 percent from 2020. Homicide was the second-highest mover, also with a 15.6 percent increase compared to last year.
Assault crimes increased by 9.2 percent, while arson went up 8.1 percent, the department reported.
Even by themselves, these numbers are alarming. However, the statement by a city resident that the reported numbers are “fictitious” suggests crime rates may be even higher than reported.
[firefly_poll]
The larceny-theft rate should be particularly alarming to business owners as they are the people likely to be directly affected. That could explain why many stores in the leftist-run San Francisco have resorted to wooden boards in hopes of protecting their inventory.
In a normal situation, this strategy would almost certainly not be helpful for either the business or its customers. Shoppers will not feel invited in by repulsive wooden boards that ruin the stores’ curb appeal, and businesses will feel the effects of shoppers turning away.
Nonetheless, many stores have opted to board up and try to communicate to customers that they are still open for business. The fact that they are willing to ruin their aesthetic exteriors in order to improve security shows just how dire the situation has become.
San Francisco is far from the only city experiencing skyrocketing crime. Chicago, another city run by leftists, is also having significant problems.
According to the Chicago Sun-Times, 617 people had been killed and at least 3,768 wounded by gunshot in the city as of Oct. 23. The outlet said Chicago was “on target for what’s likely to be one of its deadliest years since the mid-1990s.”
Both of these Democrat-run cities have strict gun control laws, yet crime continues to spike. It seems clear that leftist policies that are cut against law and order are the real culprits.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.