CNN reporter Kyung Lah decided to do a story on crime in San Francisco. She went into a Walgreens store downtown, recently live on air, to take a look at what’s going on.

She wanted to show how pharmacies and other stores are now locking down common products and being robbed much more often.

That’s when CNN got a lesson in crime live on air. The shoplifters came in and stole three times while Lah’s camera crew was rolling. Kyung later put up a nice edited version with Erin Burnett to show a sanitized rendition of the story as can be seen below.

While reporting, Lah noted various people weren’t paying for their products in the Richmond location. Even condiments are behind a locked barrier and food products are padlocked.

Some shoplifters come and start stealing ice cream and frozen tacos, desperate to get their hands on anything they can.

The corporate leadership of Walgreens and other stores have ordered staff not to intervene and cities like San Francisco don’t prosecute low-level shoplifting, leading to an apocalypse of crime.

As shopper Richie Greenberg said to Lah during her segment, this has made everything a bit like a “police state” with having to unlock products before getting them.

Two dozen shops like Walgreens shut their doors in San Francisco alone over the past three years and there have been about 10,000 thefts so far reported in 2023.

The reason this is happening is blue cities like San Francisco aren’t taking crime seriously and it only got worse under the pandemic.

Being soft on crime, promoting cashless bail, and treating criminals as victims has an impact: it leads to impunity.

Also, when criminals know there won’t be consequences, they become even more brazen and open about their crime as we see here. Thanks, CNN!