SF Police Figured Out Who has Been Robbing Walgreens

Can you believe this video is 3 1/2 years old?

This just happened at the @Walgreens on Gough & Fell Streets in San Francisco. #NoConsequences @chesaboudin pic.twitter.com/uSbnTQQk4J

— Lyanne Melendez (@LyanneMelendez) June 14, 2021

That one clip set of a long chain of media reports about the rampant retail theft that was targeting drug stores in San Francisco. A full two years later, we got this clip showing that things had not improved.

NEW: The Walgreens at 16th/Geary in San Francisco has chained up the freezer section ⛓️

Workers said normally shoplifters clean out all the pizza and ice cream every night. They’re usually hit 20x a day. The whole store is virtually locked up. @KPIXtv

h/t @greenbergnation pic.twitter.com/lfFWmkLWdo

— Betty Yu (@bett_yu) July 18, 2023

That prompted CNN to do a report on that particular store which Walgreens said had the highest level of retail theft in their entire chain. Thieves were robbing the store a dozen times a day and when CNN turned up with a camera crew they witnessed three shoplifting incidents in the brief time they were there.

This week, SF police made arrests of a shoplifting crew which has reported stolen around $84,000 worth of merchandise from Walgreens and other retailers. The crew was made up of eight individuals, with the oldest member being 18-years-old. The rest of the crew were all minors, with the youngest just 12.

Investigators said the 12-year-old boy was part of a crew that carried out at least 23 separate crimes in the city and stole more than $84,000 in merchandise from stores…

The oldest member of the crew was 18-year-old Brandon McClain of Hayward, SFPD said. Seven more arrested members were all juveniles.

Police said officers arrested a 15-year-old San Francisco boy, two 14-year-old San Francisco boys, a 15-year-old Oakland boy, a 15-year-old Oakley boy, and a 14-year-old Pittsburg boy. The 12-year-old San Francisco boy was charged with assault, robbery, burglary, grand theft, and 10 counts of organized retail theft, police said.

The 12-year-old wasn’t just tagging along either. He has been charged with assault along with a long list of other charges: “assault likely to produce great bodily injury (245(a)(4) PC), three counts of robbery in the second degree (211 PC), seven counts of burglary in the second degree (459 PC), seven counts of grand theft (487 (a) PC), ten counts of organized retail theft (490.4 PC) and four counts of petty theft (490.2(a) PC).”

The police press release includes a record of some of the crew’s thefts in just the last four months.

On July 11, 2024, seven masked suspects began gathering outside Walgreens at 2050 Irving Street. Employees recognized them to be thieves so they locked the doors and called the police.  The suspects then forced the door open and stole over $1.3k in merchandise. (SFPD case 2404353574)

On August 18, 2024, seven suspects entered Walgreens at 1333 Castro Street and began concealing merchandise.  One of the suspects jumped over the front counter and stole a cash register.  The loss was over $6.5k. (SFPD case 240518223)

On September 9, 2024, nine suspects entered Walgreens at 2690 Mission Street and began concealing merchandise.  While the suspects were escaping with over $1k in merchandise, one of the suspects brandished a firearm at a security guard. (SFPD case 240568369)

On September 29, 2024, at 6:14 p.m., eight suspects entered Walgreens at 1333 Castro Street and stole over $15k in merchandise.  The same group came back with five more accomplices approximately two hours later and stole almost $12k in merchandise (SFPD case 240612916)

If you add all that up it’s not even half of the $84,000 they (allegedly) stole so there must be a lot more incidents that aren’t included in this list. In addition, two of the teens, the 18-year-old and a 15-year-old member of the crew, have also been charged with carjacking.

Of course this crew only represents a fraction of the retail theft taking place in San Francisco, but the fact that it was made up of high school and junior high students suggest the city let this problem fester for far too long. Somehow these kids got the impression they could just rob Walgreens at will with no consequences. Whether they got it from older kids or just from watching the news, the fact is they absorbed it somewhere. Why? Because it was at least partly true. Most of the thieves are still out there and haven’t been caught.

Hopefully prosecuting these kids will send a message to anyone else thinking about joining in on the lawless behavior in SF.