To paraphrase the Jefferson Airplane, it's no secret that the San Francisco Bay Area with all its failure to enforce basic law and order is taking the short road to becoming the next Detroit.
But why stop at Detroit when you can become the next Somalia?
Here's some evidence that that's where they're going, from trade journal BoatBlurb:
It's a headline you don't expect to see in North America, but pirates are now operating in San Francisco Bay.
So in addition to having to watch the house, the car and the shop for break-ins by armed robbers, some of whom have been found to be connected to Mexico's notorious cartels, heaven help them if they've got a boat.
According to the Daily Mail:
Boat and yacht owners who spoke with the San Francisco Chronicle regarding the shocking rise in water theft incidents described it as 'the Wild West.'
'It's almost as if you were on a ship and there are pirates out there, and there's no government, no one to protect you,' said Steve Meckfessel, from a local harbor.
'We've all gotten to the point where we know there is going to be no response' from police, said boat owner Jonathan DeLong.
Some of it is being blamed on the homeless, a certain number of whom live on derelict boats purchased for a pittance out on the water.
But the method described in many cases seems to be organized criminal groups, some of whom employ bums on drugs, the same way Somalia's pirate masters once employed impoverished fishermen high on qat to do the dirty work
We saw that bunch in the movie Captain Phillips, Somali-origin actors whose performance was very, very, persuasive.
Somalia actually got rid of its pirate problem, though, several years ago and we have not heard much from them since.
According to Wikipedia:
By the first half of 2010, these increased policing efforts by Somali government authorities on land along with international naval vessels at sea reportedly contributed to a drop in pirate attacks in the Gulf of Aden from 86 a year prior to 33, forcing pirates to shift attention to other areas such as the Somali Basin and the wider Indian Ocean.[142][147][148]
The government of Somaliland has adopted stringent anti-piracy measures, arresting and imprisoning pirates forced to make port in Berbera.[149][150]
In addition to naval patrolling and marine capacity building, the shipping industry implemented Best Management Practices (BMP) in the Piracy High Risk Area (HRA), a maritime area bounded by the Suez and the Strait of Hormuz.
Anybody have high hopes for the Bay Area, chiefly around Oakland, where the worst of it is, to follow that model? More cops, a determined court system and international assistance?
They can't even get a cop to come when they are in the act of being robbed by an actual sea pirate.
They'll just have to accept that they have real Raiders in place of the beloved football team that now plays for Las Vegas.
That it has come to this is not surprising. We already know that organized criminal groups have made mass lootings a hallmark of their operations. They have targeted major retailers, the way Somali pirate targeted major ships. They have also targeted homes and cars, methodically working in pairs with cars and chase cars in designated areas, looking for specific valuables that can be fenced -- I have a home video of that very phenomenon happening in my neighborhood, showing how my car was robbed in San Diego last March.
It's the same with large retail establishments, the same with individual auto break-ins, and the same with gangs that specialize in cat burglaries, which are growing ever more common. Who could be surprised that boats which are more vulnerable than other kinds of properties, would be the next branch-out?
The shocking thing is that this thievery, retail and almost certainly the other kinds of thefts given the similar methodology -- bums, drugs, casings, targetings, coordinated robbery, cars and chase cars -- are all the work of Mexico's criminal cartels, the same monsters who are trafficking humans into the U.S., extracting crossing fees from illegals, sending lethal drugs, making life in Mexico hell, and assassinating presidential candidates in places like Ecuador. They know there's no stopping them because the U.S. under Joe Biden and solid blue cities lacks the will to either apprehend and punish any criminal.
It's a wretched state of affairs that a place like Somalia could get rid of its pirate problems in less than a decade, but there's not a scintilla of hope for San Francisco's Bay Area based on its blue cities' refusal to reform themselves, letting go of that urge to coddle thieves and pirates. They'll just have to watch the problem get bigger.
Image: Twitter screen shot