A San Francisco man got the shock of his life twice over when his car was robbed in Oakland, California. Not only did he lose $24,000 worth of camera equipment, but what the police told him about the crime made matters so much worse.
Justin Schuck was just in the midst of rebuilding his life after coming back from a substance abuse problem four years before and was preparing to start a new career in filmmaking. In pursuit of that goal, Schuck had purchased $24,000 worth of camera equipment, lenses, drones, and other items and had the lot stashed in a way he thought no one could see it in his rented Tesla.
Schuck had enrolled in the masters film program at SF State and was going to use the equipment to work toward his degree. The items were all brand new and had not yet even been taken from the boxes. In fact, he only had the items a short time and had not yet insured them, according to KGO-TV.
The budding filmmaker had an appointment to shoot some production video in Oakland and headed into the town on Sept. 9.
“I had just been driving through downtown and I was like, ‘Isn’t Oakland beautiful? Like, I love Oakland,’” Shuck told KGO.
Schuck parked across from the YMCA in that beautiful downtown but when he came out only a short time later, he was met with a heartrending sight as the rear window of his Tesla was shattered. And when he looked inside, he realized that his expensive cache of equipment was gone.
“I literally felt like the pit of my stomach drop. And I knew that the equipment wasn’t insured. And so to have it gone so soon after, like, buying it, just was devastating,” Schuck said.
Schuck had just ruefully joined a club that is getting less exclusive every day in Oakland. According to official police data, more than 10,000 people have had their cars broken into with “smash and grab” crimes that are running rampant in San Francisco and so many other cities in California.
Still, even though he felt like he had been gut-punched, Schuck thought he had a small bit of hope left.
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The photographer had placed tracking tags inside the bags and among the camera gear and when he jumped onto his tracking app, he discovered that the tags showed his stolen items being transported across the bridge into San Francisco and coming to a halt at Post Street.
Schuck thought he nailed it. He knew exactly where his items had gone!
Consequently, Schuck went to the San Francisco Police to report the theft and the destination of his stolen goods. But what the police told him made him feel like he was gut-punched all over again.
Schuck told the police the exact address of where his items stopped moving and said that his stolen equipment was probably sitting right there waiting for them to walk in and grab it all back for him. But apparently, it wasn’t going to be that easy.
“And he goes, ‘Oh, yeah, that’s a known major fencing operation,’” Schuck said of the officer he was dealing with. “‘Everybody in the Bay Area knows that they can bring their stolen goods and offload them there,’” Schuck told KGO. “Think about that.”
Even worse, the location is close to a police station. “And it’s a block and a half, not even a block and a half from the Tenderloin Police Station. Like, how were you not raiding that place on a daily basis?” he said.
When KGO contacted the San Francisco Police, they were told that officers cannot talk about a location that is at the center of an ongoing investigation. But according to KGO, this place has been fencing stolen goods for years and the police haven’t made a single move against it.
KGO also discovered that the surveillance video of the street where the smash-and-grab crooks took his camera items was not saved, so there isn’t even any video evidence of the theft anymore.
The entire escapade left Schuck very cold on local leaders. “I honestly think it’s time for new leadership at like every level because this has gone on long enough. And I’m sick and tired. I’m sick and tired,” Schuck said.
Sadly, this incident is being repeated thousands of times a day in similar Democrat-run cities all across America. George Soros-funded prosecutors won’t prosecute criminals, police therefore don’t bother catching them, and politicians turn a blind eye to it all. Meanwhile, citizens lives are being destroyed day by day as authorities do nothing at all.
Schuck is right. It’s time Democratic voters wised up. They are voting for their own destruction. And it’s time to stop being such fools.
