San Francisco's district attorney says her office is putting an end to brazen crimes, one prosecution at a time.
Some residents say it’s an everyday sight -- crime scenes and interruptions when using the city’s public transportation.
“My heart always pounds, ‘who’s gonna come, what are they going to do, are they going to attack me?’” said commuter Rosena Abriha. “I've had my purse stolen before, I've had my phone stolen before, so I called the police, did a report online and they never did anything about it.”
Commuters describe it as a daily battle, where they’re constantly looking over their shoulder.
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“Especially at night, when it's dark outside, yeah,” said Yanick Prohl.
But on Monday, a loud message came from the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office, after the jury convicted a man accused of stealing an iPhone from a 69-year-old woman as she was boarding a bus.
“People have felt that an extreme level of lawlessness is: something that we are going to tolerate in the city and I wanted to be clear that not only is it something that my office, and law enforcement, is going to tolerate but it think San Francisco juries are saying to the extent that they’ve been offered sufficient evidence, enough is enough,” said DA Brooke Jenkins.
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Prosecutors say 27-year-old Deandre Gippson intentionally targeted the victim.
They say after taking off with her phone, the woman tried chasing him, then good Samaritans stepped in and one of them followed Gippson in a car until police were able to detain him.
“This is a serious crime, the brazenness of it is something we need to take seriously and certainly as people get away with these types of things they’re emboldened to do others and that’s what we want to stop,” said Jenkins.
But others believe prosecution shouldn’t be the first step in fighting crime.
“These people are not responsible for themselves, if they were, then that wouldn’t happen I think they should look at what’s really going on with the system,” said commuter John Felder.
