Tourists no longer available in SF town so criminals go after homeowners

With tourists gone from one lovely San Francisco neighborhood, criminals are targeting homeowners instead, KTVU reported.

Mr. Couillard was shaken as he watched a thief on surveillance cameras casing a home in Bernal Heights.

“You can basically see him in the video with the flashlight, you know, going in, looking at the different inside cars and trying to kind of open the door and break into them,” said Ben Couillard.

Couillard owns the house where the burglar was seen peering into vehicles, but was away and had a house sitter watching over the property.

He said the house sitter came face-to-face with the suspicious person who had turned his attention away from the vehicles and to the house.

“So she saw him through the window and basically when she asked him, you know, ‘Can I help you?’ Like, what are you doing as he’s trying to break in? And he said to her, like, ‘Go upstairs, (expletive) or I’ll kill you.”

Couillard said after three years of relative calm, the area where he lives near Peralta and Powhattan has been hit with a lot of crime lately including grand theft auto, and garage burglaries.

In November, he said an armed burglar robbed his house while he and his wife were home.

“I have a baby on the way, like where this happens when we’re at home with our child. It’s pretty unsettling,” Couillard said.

San Francisco Supervisor Hillary Ronen, District Attorney Chesa Boudin, son of a terrorist who was raised by a terrorist, and the captain of the police department overseeing the area, held a virtual town hall with residents of the community Wednesday night to address their concerns.

They attribute what they say is an increase in crime to “economic desperation” and “tourism has gone down so substantially in San Francisco that criminal rings that targeted tourists in areas that tourists frequent no longer have tourists there,” said Supervisor Ronen.

It’s “economic desperation,” so that’s okay?

Nothing was done, but the Supervisor said he’d continue to work with the SRPF Captain and the beat officers.

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