Woke San Francisco DA Chesa Boudin is RECALLED by voters in notoriously liberal city as murders soar 11% and locals furious with rising crime say his progressive policies are to blame
- Voters in San Francisco have kicked out the city's progressive district attorney, Chesa Boudin, with 60.5 percent voting to recall him
- Boudin, a former public defender, was elected as part of a wave of progressive Soros prosecutors
- Boudin, 41, had been the target of a multi-million-dollar recall campaign by residents who say the liberal city has become an increasingly unsafe place to live
- The election has ramifications beyond San Francisco, with national polls showing Americans increasingly worried about violent crime
San Francisco on Tuesday voted to recall its progressive district attorney amid rising anger at the city's crime-ridden state.
Chesa Boudin, 41, had been widely expected to lose his job and 60.5 per cent of voters made their feelings clear over his woke policies by deciding to recall him.
Only 24 percent of the city's electorate of 495,000 turned out, with 70,730 voting against the DA
Recall proponents cheered the news at a victory party, with California state leaders of the hotel and retailers associations lauding Boudin's removal as a sign that visitors, shoppers and employees will be prioritized again in a city that relies heavily on tourism.
Boudin, a former public defender elected in January 2020, was the target of a multi-million-dollar recall campaign earlier this year by residents who say the city has become an increasingly unsafe place to live due to his soft-on-crime policies.
San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin was voted out of office on Tuesday, with citizens irate over the city's crime ridden state pushing out the progressive politician
Boudin said voters were understandably frustrated by a city government that has failed to deliver on safety.
'We have two cities. We have two systems of justice. We have one for the wealthy and the well connected and a different one for everybody else.'
Leanna Louie stands with a sign and bullhorn on 19th Avenue urging motorists to recall the District Attorney
Boudin said the recall effort was driven by businesspeople and police officers.
Boudin's parents were members of the radical 80s activist group Weather Underground.
Progressive laws have been widely blamed for rising crime and homelessness in the Bay Area, where brazen looters have been seen ransacking stores and breaking into cars in greater numbers.
So far this year, statistics show that the crime wave has worsened, with the city's murder rate rising 11 percent, and rapes up by nearly 10 percent.
Boudin's time in office has also seen a marked rise in vagrancy - a stand-out issue in the Bay Area, where homelessness and drug use has run rampant.
Many of those backing the recall were Democrats, in a city where Republicans are a distinct minority.
But the election has ramifications beyond San Francisco, with national polls showing Americans increasingly worried about violent crime.
Republicans hope to seize upon that anxiety in their bid to assume control of the U.S. Congress in the November midterm elections. Republican-backed ads are already running in states such as North Carolina and Wisconsin addressing fears of rising crime.
The concerns in San Francisco resemble those in other large Democrat cities in the United States.
Critics blame Progressive policies for an uptick in murders, shootings and property crimes.
Residents who support the recall say that Boudin's policies have made the liberal California enclave - which has seen vagrancy and crime rates soar in recent months - an increasingly unsafe place to live
San Francisco police report 20 murders so far this year, an 11 percent increase from the 18 reported in the same time last year.
Larceny theft, meanwhile, has skyrocketed under Boudin, with 13,424 cases reported this year - a 20.4 percent rise from the 11,151 reported last year.
Assaults also saw a spike of 11 percent with 1,035 cases reported so far this year, and rapes have gone up by nearly 10 percent, with police reporting 97 cases in 2022 - compared to the 89 seen this time last year.
As larceny continues to see the largest increase in crime, the Bay Area has contended with a series of smash-and-grab robberies in the past year, with brazen thieves raiding stores in the middle of day.
Video from a Walgreens in San Francisco last month shows three shoplifters empty the store's shelves and pack everything they can into bags, before running out the pharmacy.
Recall backers claimed Boudin's policies have made San Francisco less safe. They have aired ads highlighting shocking videos of smash-and-grab robberies and looting from stores in the city. Under Boudin's lax crime laws, the perpetrators regularly avoid prosecution
As larceny continues to see the largest increase in crime, the Bay Area has contended with a series of smash-and-grab robberies in the past year, with brazen thieves raiding stores in the middle of day
Because of policies implemented by Boudin, whose criminal justice reform policies often allow the offenders off scot-free, the clerks are left only able to watch
Drug store chains like Walgreens and CVS have become attractive and easy targets for shoplifters, leading to numerous store closures in the Bay Area.
In the area's largest city, San Francisco, low-level offenses, such as retail thefts, have been effectively de-criminalized under Boudin's leadership.
Walgreens said last year that retail theft in San Francisco was five times the chain average and security costs were 46 times the chain average, the Chronicle reported.
According to the latest available crime data, grand larceny rates in California's liberal bastion were up 26 per cent in mid-April, compared with the same period last year.
California Gov Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, has vowed to crack down on gangs of retail thieves, despite a controversial 2014 law - Proposition 47 - that barred prosecutors from charging suspected shoplifters accused of stealing less than $950 worth of merchandise with felonies.
San Francisco's woke DA: A former public defender whose parents spent decades in prison over an armed robbery that left a cop dead
Kathy Boudin and David Gilbert, Chesa Boudin's radical leftist parents, spent decades in prison after taking part in a botched armored vehicle robbery that left three dead
Chesa Boudin, a progressive Democrat, had entered the San Francisco district attorney's race and won by fewer than 3,000 ballots.
When Boudin was just a year old in 1981, his parents, who were members of the far-left Weather Underground, dropped him off with a babysitter and took part in an armored car robbery in upstate New York that left two police officers and a security guard dead.
His mother, Kathy Boudin, served 22 years behind bars and his father, David Gilbert, was jailed for life - until outgoing NY Governor Andrew Cuomo commuted his sentence for murder in August.
They didn't fire shots that day and the victims were killed by the Black Liberation Army.
Boudin was cared for by members of a radical left-wing group and says his experiences of visiting his parents in jail galvanized his progressive views on law and order.
Gilbert and other former members of the Weather Underground, a militant group that grew out of the anti-Vietnam War movement, had joined with members of the Black Liberation Army in the October 20, 1981, robbery.
They stole $1.6 million in cash from an armored car outside the Nanuet Mall near the Hudson River community of Nyack.
Brink's guard Peter Paige and two Nyack police officers, Sergeant Edward O'Grady and Officer Waverly Brown, were killed in the holdup and ensuing shootout at a nearby roadblock.
Though unarmed, Gilbert was charged with robbery and murder, since people were killed during the crime. Also charged was Chesa Boudin´s mother, Kathy Boudin. The boy was 14 months old when his parents were imprisoned.
Boudin was raised by his parents´ Weather Underground compatriots, Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn.
George Soros-backed groups have spent $40 million to elect 75 progressive prosecutors over the last decade - meaning one in FIVE Americans now live in areas covered by his criminal justice reformers
George Soros, 91, is pictured on May 24 at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. He has funded, through his foundation, the election of 75 progressive prosecutors in the last decade
Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan DA (left), was backed by Soros, as was Kim Foxx, DA for Cook County, Illinois (right)
Buta Biberaj was given $922,000 for her election campaign, to become the district attorney for Loudoun County, Virginia
