Usually at this time of year, San Francisco’s luxury stores are decked with holiday garlands. Instead, they’re boarded up after widespread “flash mob” looting turned Union Square — the city’s most fashionable shopping district — into an area resembling a blighted neighborhood in Detroit.
“It’s a ghost town,” said Michelle Tandler, a San Francisco native and high-tech entrepreneur, whose photos of the stores barricaded in plywood went viral on social media this week. “Every store has a security guard. People are going to lose their jobs. And these things have a ripple effect.”
Two weeks ago, San Francisco was the first of several progressive cities hit by smash-and-grab mobs of thieves, sometimes as many as 80 in a group. Video from the San Francisco looting of Louis Vuitton shows criminals walking casually out of the store, goods in hand. Other cities hit include Los Angeles, Chicago and Minneapolis.
I encourage you to read Michelle Tandler’s Twitter posts. SF is even more fecked than we know. She’s a self described “moderate liberal” but not for long I suspect.
If you want to see my notes they are linked in this Notion Doc.
However – to summarize there were a few categories of critical responses:
1. You are evil
2. Rich/businesses/property is evil
3. Gov/System is broken
4. This is justified
5. Misc/other https://t.co/THsFFdrbfN— Michelle Tandler (@michelletandler) December 5, 2021
