ALL THAT HYSTERIA WASTED:

The Chronicle published another of its famed deep dives into crime statistics today, using SFPD reported crime data, the supposed gold standard in the great crime debates. And the data singles out  -- guess who?  -- the Target at the Metreon.

The Chron found that reported San Francisco shoplifting incidents doubled in the month of September 2021. Sounds bad! But that spike completely disappeared the following month. And then there's another crazy insight in that reported data.

"A closer look at the data shows that the spike in reported shoplifting came almost entirely from one store: the Target at 789 Mission St. in the Metreon mall," the Chron reports. "In September alone, 154 shoplifting reports were filed from the South of Market intersection where the Target stands, up from 13 in August. And then, in October, the reports from this intersection went down again to 17."

A Target spokespeson told the Chron the September shoplifting surge is attributed entirely to a new reporting system wherein they could report shoplifting by phone. 

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