In a San Francisco Mission District cafe, brazen thief gets a beatdown

As they might sing in San Francisco, the times they are a changin.' \

This ran on X the other day, from a local news station reporter:

The San Francisco Chronicle picked it up today:

It was a typically quiet start to Friday morning at Carlin’s Cafe in San Francisco’s Mission District.

A regular customer, the first of the day as usual, sat at a table near the front door, and barista Nick Grant was behind the counter when a man in a black hoodie and black face mask walked in, reached into his right pocket, pulled out a weapon and grabbed the customer’s backpack.

That’s when Grant swung into action. As captured on the cafe’s security camera, he runs from behind the counter, grabs a supply cart and rams the suspect, who is heading for the door, backpack in hand. Grant grabs the suspect, pushes him away from the door, and starts punching him as he tries to pull him to the ground.

Despite being just three blocks away, the cops took six minutes to arrive, so the Daniel Penny in this case eventually sat on the thief, putting him in a triangle lock at one point. He had mixed martial arts training and knew how to subdue the would-be thief.

I used to live in this very area, frequently these very streets, including this one some 30 years ago. My car got stolen once and was found on that very block, with complete gangsta rap tapes in the player. I recall the nightmarish Valencia Street Projects nearby, which have since been urban-renewal'ed, but obviously, the crime is still the same likely because the drug dealers haven't been evicted. The place has great cafes, great film and theatre (including the terrific Fat Chance Belly Dancers), makeshift art galleries, assorted far-left activist offices, world's best burrito makers, and many bookstores, including this one I wrote about here. It's the epitome of 'Bohemian,' and not surprisingly, inch-per-inch is probably the most leftist place on Earth.

It's not only important that Grant, the hero here, was able to capture the thief on his own without waiting for the always-pokey Mission station cops to arrive.

What's even more important is that he had the will to do it.

The fear of being prosecuted was not there. That sounds like a culture shift amid mass retail theft which has probably hit San Francisco harder than almost anyone else.

That may be because the locals are sick of the constant crime and the constant non-punishment, and among the entrepreurial class at least, are willing to take matters into their own hands. It's noteworthy that unlike many recent retail cases around the country, the owner said he was proud of his employee. He didn't want to fire him:

Cafe manager Matt Carlin, whose family has owned the business for 18 years and just reopened it a year ago after the pandemic, called Grant and Carroll heroes.

“It’s incredible. A customer was in trouble, and he came to protect him. We need to have more people act quick like Nick,” he said. “We need more people like these two to get involved.”

President Trump was elected president, and sanity is in the zeitgeist, too. But even more important, San Francisco threw out its wokester mayor, which is more than cities like San Diego, which until recently was still counting its ballots, or Orange County, which mysteriously elected Democrat congress members in a red wave, can say.  It also threw out its Sorosian-values district attorney, Chesa Boudin a couple years earlier.

It's as if voters are finding their courage and a trend has begun. And that trend has empowered individuals to insist on fairness and justice, stopping crime in an area where the local talk has always been that the Mission cops care about their pensions most.

That's a positive development. There may be pushback from the mighty homeless and drug-addict industrial complexes that pretty much rule that city, but so far, so good. This is the bluest city in America, and the fresh air of change is coming through.

Image: X video screen shot

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