L.A. — People across the country don’t like how notoriously bad San Francisco is for car thefts. U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff learned this the hard way when his luggage was stolen from his parked car in a downtown garage.
Schiff didn’t bring his dress clothes to a dinner Thursday to raise money for his U.S. Senate campaign. Instead, he wore shirt sleeves and an insulated coat, as if he were going to a Los Angeles Dodgers game. Most of the other people who went to the event wore suits and ties.
Schiff’s campaign admitted the break-in but wouldn’t say anything else because the investigation was still going on.
The lawmaker told the San Francisco Chronicle, “Yes, they took my bags,” but he didn’t want to talk about it too much because he had been a victim of crime himself.
Reports of car thefts in San Francisco are going down, but it’s still common to see cars with broken windows and other pieces of broken glass all over the city. People who live in or visit the area are constantly told to take valuables out of parked cars.
Schiff didn’t listen to that advice.
In August, the city’s police chief said that they would be doing more to stop smash-and-grabs. In July, there were 1,850 break-ins in San Francisco, but in February, there were only about 900. In September 2022, more than 3,000 thefts were recorded.
Schiff became famous across the country as the lead lawyer in President Donald Trump’s first impeachment trial. Schiff used to work as a federal prosecutor. Schiff says on his campaign website that he wants to “fix our broken criminal justice system and keep families and communities safe in California.”
Following the crime, Schiff got a lot of hate on social media. “Democrats have nobody to blame but themselves,” wrote one user on the social site X.
The burglary involving a well-known Congresswoman brought to mind the theft and beating of former U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer in July 2021 in Oakland, California, which is close by and also has a high crime rate in the San Francisco Bay Area. Someone attacked her and pushed her, taking her cell phone. She wasn’t badly hurt, though.
