The keys were indeed missing, but police said they could do nothing to protect the car. The neighbor talked to police on the phone and asked them to check whether the burglars had stolen the keys to a car parked out front. They stayed on the sidewalk so long, the person upstairs apparently managed to escape, Ward said.ĭanielle Kuzinich shows a photo of the extensive damage done to her restaurant’s popular facility. Police responded but did not enter the house. His neighbor, away on vacation and alerted to the break-in by a phone app, had simultaneously called 911. After he entered the house and screamed at a man in a ski mask who fled, he heard footsteps upstairs. Kevin Ward, a Bernal Heights resident, witnessed the break-in of his neighbor’s home on Nov. That prompted numerous emails and calls with similar accounts. In December, I wrote about a Tenderloin mom who reported to police that a stranger had just struck her in the head, but officers did little about it. Kuzinich was dumbstruck by that response - and she certainly isn’t alone in her disbelief. that a crime was committed by the subject. Officer Robert Rueca, a police spokesperson, said officers responded to the parklet after being notified of its destruction by firefighters at a station down the street, but that officers “saw no signs. “I’m speechless at this point,” Kuzinich told me, after weeks spent futilely trying to get answers about her damaged parklet from the Police Department and District Attorney’s Office. Whatever the reasons, some officers seem to have turned into bureaucratic fillers of forms rather than crime-solvers. Police say they’re struggling with increased scrutiny, a staffing shortage, sinking morale and a district attorney who they say won’t prosecute many crimes. For years, San Franciscans have described calling 911 to report a crime only to have police show up and say there’s nothing they can do - if they show up at all. While shocking, these stories aren’t new. Police did not respond to repeated requests for an update in that investigation. The Chronicle broke the story in November that officers responded to a 911 call about a possible burglary at a cannabis dispensary and watched as a person exited the building, hopped in a car, executed a three-point turn in front of police vehicles and drove away. The shrug over the parklet destruction is just one more example of police seeming to throw up their hands and ignore crime rather than deal with it. The episode raises a question that’s been asked by many San Francisco residents and business owners for years: What is the Police Department doing? Security camera footage from a business across the street shows the interaction between the cops and the man, who continued to tamper with the parklet after the officers departed, causing tens of thousands of dollars in damage and costing Kuzinich an estimated $40,000 in business as she repaired it. Turns out, two city police officers arrived midway through the vandalism spree, spoke with the man and left. The vandal tore out the parklet’s windows and fireplaces, ripped up its carpet and wallpaper and dragged everything - even a Christmas tree - across the street to create a pile of parklet detritus.īut that wasn’t the only disturbing revelation. 31, the restaurant owner received a call that someone had trashed her prized space just before dawn, busting through boards that had been placed alongside it and secured with dozens of locks to protect it overnight.ĭanielle Kuzinich opens a barrier securing the newly rebuilt Wine Society parklet. Kuzinich won an award from the Chamber of Commerce: best parklet in the city.īut on Dec.
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