A CNN reporter fell victim to a ‘smash-and-grab‘ robbery while reporting on San Francisco’s “rampant street crime.” 

In a series of tweets on Friday, CNN correspondent Kyung Lah described how her rental car’s rear window was smashed within seconds by thieves who then made off with her bags.

“Got robbed. Again,” Lah wrote. “[CNN producer Jason Kravarik] & I were at city hall in San Francisco to do an interview for @CNN. We had security to watch our rental car + crew car. Thieves did this in under 4 seconds. Security stopped the jerks from stealing other bags. But seriously- this is ridiculous.”

Even though Lah hired ‘private security,’ the crooks were able to flee the scene.  

The irony is that the reporter at the left-leaning news outlet was filming a segment on “rampant street crime” in San Francisco, now considered the “shoplifting capital of America” because of progressive prosecutors who refuse to enforce criminal laws.

Surging crime, open-air drug dealing, and robberies are a byproduct of failed social justice reforms by progressive politicians, such as George Soros-backed District Attorney Chesa Boudin, who was booted out of office last June by angry voters. 

Twitter users had fun with this: 

Not unlike many other corporations with retail locations in cities nationwide, Target is calling it quits on Philadelphia. They follow in the footsteps of Wawa, who we noted last year had enough of Philadelphia’s crime and also picked up and left shop at several locations in Center City.

Target, located just blocks from one Wawa that recently closed, is taking the same action, according to the Philadelphia Business Journal. Its store at 12th and Chestnut streets in Center City will be closing after 7 years of operation. 

The 19,000 sq. foot store is going to be closing “due to several years of declining performance”, the report says. The company plans on attempting to relocate its 45 part and full time employees at the store. 

Kayla Castañeda, a spokesperson for Target, commented: “The decision to close one of our stores isn’t something we take lightly. It’s an action we take only after multiple years of working to improve performance.”

Target is also going to be closing three other stores, one in its hometown of Minneapolis and two in the Washington, D.C., area, the report continued. The company is also looking to open a massive 22,000 sq. foot store near 37th and Chestnut – basically in the middle of U Penn’s campus – which will help it replace its presence lost in Center City. 

The Center City store had just opened in July 2016 as part of an apartment building, and its across the street from a brand new $762 million Jefferson Health facility that is nearing the end of construction. On the south side of the closing Target store, additional commercial and residential buildings are being erected.

But the influx of new buildings onto the block wasn’t enough for the company to want to keep its store open. In addition to Wawa stores that have closed, a Marshalls located at 10th and Market street – just blocks away from Target – also closed earlier this year.

The incredible crime fighting skills of Lori Lightfoot have already driven Ken Griffin out of Chicago, as we noted last year. Now, it looks like CME Group Inc.’s Terry Duffy could be next. 

Duffy had already been outspoken to Chicago’s mayor about fighting crime – and, according to Bloomberg, that was before his wife was carjacked.

Duffy told the ICE House Podcast this week: “Three o’clock in the afternoon, my wife got carjacked right in the city of Chicago and it’s absolutely insane what’s going on here. Ninety percent of the carjackings in Chicago are done by juveniles. So the juveniles go in and they come right back out literally an hour later.”

The CME head grew up on the Southwest side of Chicago, the report notes, and currently works from a skyscraper downtown. But he says that crime in the city is inciting fear amongst his employees, who no longer want to return to the workplace. 

He said after challenging Lori Lightfoot on crime, she responded by saying the homicide rate was falling. “I said, ‘don’t go there. Please don’t go there.’ One is too many,” Duffy responded.

Lightfoot did not make it to a runoff after placing third in the city’s recent election for mayor. That’s likely due to the fact that crime was up 41% last year and has been up 33% since 2019, Bloomberg reports. 

“It was a tough time growing up in Chicago,” Duffy said, lamenting some optimism that the city could eventually get better and that the problem is wider spread than just Chicago. “So yes, we we’ve been on our back foot a few times… But I think we try to move forward and hopefully we can do it again.”

Others aren’t as optimistic. Recall, last year we noted that Citadel’s Griffin said  “Chicago is like Afghanistan, on a good day, and that’s a problem.” He also said that he saw “25 bullet shots in the glass window of the retail space” in the building he lives in.

“It just tells you, like, how deep crime runs in this city. There is nowhere, where you can feel safe today walking home at 9:30 at night and you worry about your kids coming to and from school.”

“Chicago will continue to be important to the future of Citadel, as many of our colleagues have deep ties to Illinois,” Griffin wrote, before explaining that the ties will not be that deep. “Over the past year, however, many of our Chicago teams have asked to relocate to Miami, New York and our other offices around the world,” he concluded.