A local politician in California had items stolen Monday in Emeryville while discussing the stabbing and flash mob that took place at Bay Street Mall on Sunday, CBS News Bay Area reported.
City council member Kalimah Priforce rode his bike to the Emeryville mall to spend the day discussing the flash mob and enhanced safety measures with the local businesses affected in the area, according to CBS. Priforce unexpectedly had to call the police after discovering that his keys and wallet had been stolen from his bike bag.
“The thing is that they’re not going to get much from it, I am on a politician’s budget,” Priforce jokingly told CBS of his stolen property. “But no, everything is digital now. The criminals will adapt and we have to adapt with them.”
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Hundreds of teenagers descended on the Bay Street Mall Sunday after coordinating a flash mob on social media. The mob ransacked a Target after fights broke out at the mall, and one minor was stabbed on the road next to the mall amidst the chaos.
San Francisco and its neighboring cities need to do more to combat crime, Priforce told Fox KTVU News. Many local businesses cannot afford private guards or technology to help enhance their security, he said.
“I wish we all could do a better job as elected officials in providing protection to our most vulnerable,” Priforce said in a statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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“Better prepared, better cameras, better surveillance, better ways of being able to protect our local businesses,” Priforce told Fox KTVU. “Unfortunately, we place more emphasis on luxury-rate market apartments in our cities than we do on our public safety.”
Forty-five percent of surveyed residents in the San Francisco area said they have been a victim of property crime, which includes theft, according to the Pacific Research Institute.
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