Gov.Gavin Newsom has gone viral for shoplifting at Goal. Effectively, form of.
The governor didn’t really steal something. However as he tells it, he did witness somebody blatantly strolling out of a Sacramento-area retailer with an armload of stolen stuff, presumably proper in entrance of his personal intimidating-looking safety element. And when Newsom requested why nobody was taking motion, the clerk instructed him it was the governor’s fault.
Newsom has made it too simple to steal, he stated the clerk instructed him — earlier than realizing who he was and freaking out.
Newsom, who was Christmas procuring with one in all his youngsters on the time, stated he was outraged. It’s simply not true, he stated he instructed the clerk. California has the tenth-toughest legal guidelines in opposition to retail theft within the nation, he lectured — in a means that should have appeared tremendous bizarre till she deduced his identification.
“I stated: ‘Why didn’t you cease him?’ ” Newsom stated he requested the clerk.
“She goes, ’Oh, the governor’ ” — he broke off — “swear to God, true story, on my mother’s grave.” He added that the clerk had the temerity to inform him: “The governor lowered the brink, there’s no accountability. … We don’t cease them due to the governor.”
Newsom instructed the story this week to a gaggle of mayors from across the state who had gathered on zoom for a information convention on his psychological well being initiative, Proposition 1. The group was chatting amongst themselves whereas ready for San Francisco Mayor London Breed and San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria to go browsing. After relating the anecdote, the governor added that he hoped the 2 mayors weren’t the one ones not but signed into the Zoom. “Hopefully, all of the reporters weren’t on,” he stated.
Too late. The trade, posted on X (previously often known as Twitter) after which picked up by tv and print retailers across the state, shortly went viral — catnip within the heated debate about retail theft and Proposition 47, which lowered some thefts and drug offenses to misdemeanors to cut back mass incarceration. Some critics have blamed Proposition 47 for the rise in thefts.
Newsom himself got here out final month calling for laws to crack down on “skilled thieves” with out amending Proposition 47, noting that one of many wine shops he owns in San Francisco was robbed at the least thrice in 2021. He identified that Texas’ threshold for felony theft is amongst these that’s increased than California’s.
However these factors did little to calm the viral story. The chairwoman of the state Republican Social gathering, Jessica Millan Patterson, shortly jumped into the fray, writing on X: “Shout-out to this retailer clerk for saying to the governor’s face what each Californian has wished to say: that he and his radical @CA_Dem buddies are guilty for CA’s surging crime. Sadly, Newsom nonetheless didn’t appear to take the trace.”
Newsom’s workplace declined to determine which Goal the encounter occurred at, to maintain the media from mobbing the shop. They did say the encounter passed off within the Sacramento space, round Christmastime, whereas the governor was procuring with one in all his youngsters.
The trade, the governor stated, ended with an try at a photo-op.
Because the governor was explaining how strict California’s retail theft legal guidelines really are, the clerk, he stated, “seems to be at me, twice. She freaks out. She calls everybody over, desires to take images.”
“I stated, no, I’m not taking a photograph,” Newsom stated. “We’re having a dialog. The place’s your supervisor? How are you blaming the governor?”
He added: “Why am I spending $380? Everybody can stroll the hell proper out.”
