Theft throughout the state of California is so common, that not even Christmas trees are safe from the rampant crime. Last Friday a couple in California was the target of a robber who cut their Christmas tree off the top of their vehicle before driving away with it.
A man, who goes by the name Jesus, shared that he and his wife had picked up a Christmas tree Friday evening in San Mateo, CA. Within 10 minutes of leaving their vehicle, nearby surveillance footage showed another man driving up, cutting the tree from the top of the vehicle, loading it into his own white SUV, and driving off.
Dion Lim, a local San Francisco reporter, shared that the robber was so casual about the crime that she even had to speed up the surveillance footage while the theft took place. “I sped up the video since the original provided by a nearby business was pretty long. The Scrooge isn’t even moving quickly. Like he/she has not a care in the world,” she shared.
San Mateo Police have not caught the thief but have stated that they will be on the lookout for similar thefts as the Christmas season continues.
San Mateo, located in the Bay Area, has been in the news alongside areas such as San Francisco for the consistent theft and crime that have plagued the area. For example, the local San Francisco channel, ABC7, has consistently detailed the never-ending crime rates, “ranging from a young woman getting robbed and dragged by a car, to stabbings in broad daylight, armed robberies and more.”
Recently, California officials came under fire as locals pleaded with officials to clean up their cities and get crime rates, homelessness, and drug use under control. However, in the most glaring example of how the California government can fix their cities but refuse to, it wasn’t until President of China, Xi Jinping, was visiting San Francisco for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit that the city finally decided to clean up the homeless encampments and drug dens.
California Governor Gavin Newsom even went so far as to confirm that, “I know folks say, ‘Oh, they’re just cleaning up this place because all those fancy leaders are coming into town.’ That’s true because it’s true,” he stated.
This type of mentality, alongside the brazen theft plaguing everyday Californians, has led to an uptick in Americans leaving the state in 2022. It was reported that 817,000 people fled California in search of a safer and less expensive home.
