Update on Stow Lake Robbery: Luckily, No One Was Killed

Photograph taken by award-winning Stow Lake robbery victim

Last year, I authored an article about an award-winning photographer getting robbed at gunpoint of his camera equipment.  SFPD immediately created a regional bulletin with photos of the getaway BMW from the Stow Lake robbery.  Antioch police officers found Hakeem in the BMW, riddled with bullet holes from an unrelated incident, and arrested him.

Parts of the $13,000 in camera equipment were found in Hakeem’s car and photos taken of the stolen camera equipment were found on Hakeem’s cellphone.  After he was mirandized, Hakeem blamed his partner for fencing the stolen camera equipment at 24th and Mission Streets.

DA Chesa Boudin filed (FCAAP)[1] the robbery case against Hakeem.  The victim was appeased by the DA’s Victim/Witness Division who advised that SFPD would testify on his behalf so he could put the incident behind him.

Boudin had former career public defender Leah Abraham handle the prosecution by entering a negotiated settlement with the Public Defender’s Office.  With a negotiated settlement, there were no court transcripts or transparency, only unmonitored phone calls between Boudin and his former coworkers.  On April 6, 2021, Boudin and Abraham bait-and-switched the filed robbery to a misdemeanor disturbing the peace conviction.

The victim was shocked when I informed him of Boudin’s disposition: “I wish I didn’t know that.  I assumed Hakeem was in jail.”

Boudin false spin on auto burglaries

Auto break-ins continue to harm San Francisco’s reputation. 

After SFPD mirandized Hakeem, he said that he and his partner were driving around Golden Gate Park trying to find cars to break into.  Then they saw the photographer as an easy mark—called an audible and only his partner committed the robbery.

While progressives continue to spin auto break-ins as a nonviolent property crime, clearly Hakeem and his partner came armed to defend themselves.  Sources are also telling me last week’s Bayview stabbing murder victim was a prolific auto burglar.

In Joe Eskenazi’s interview of Boudin for the Mission Local, Boudin attacked former SFPD Chief Suhr for not resolving the auto break-in problem:

(34:02) He (Greg Suhr) didn’t solve the auto burglary problem.  In fact, when he was police chief in 2017, San Francisco had 31,000 auto burglaries.  That was the peak of auto burglaries on record.  He didn’t solve the problem.

1) Greg Suhr departed SFPD on May 19, 2016.  Thus, Boudin’s claim on Suhr’s “in fact” 2017 performance was “in fact” incorrect.

2) Boudin also withheld context from his spin on peak SF auto burglaries.  In August 2017, Mayor Ed Lee recognized that auto break-ins were overwhelming the 9-1-1 call center, so he directed auto break-ins--that were not immediately in progress-- to be directed to the 3-1-1 information line.  There, the tourists were told they were not worthy of an SFPD response and instead had to negotiate an SFPD computer program to self-report their car break-in.  By putting these hurdles in tourists’ way, reported auto break-in’s immediately declined 17% in 2018[2] despite no change in SFPD’s strategy to address car break-ins.  Thus, the still ubiquitous glass on our sidewalks did not peak in 2017 as Boudin claims, tourists just stopped reporting auto burglaries and accepted SF’s reputation as the property crime capital of the US.  See my article: While US Property Crimes Declined 23%, SF’s Increased 42%.

3) At 21:56 in his interview, Boudin faulted SFPD for only solving 1% of reported auto burglaries.  However, as we see in 2 (above), the majority of tourists’ self-reported auto burglaries go directly to SFPD statistics, while completely bypassing SFPD’ street cops.  But despite the absence of real time data going to SFPD, Boudin still scapegoated SFPD for not arresting auto burglaries they were never privy to.

Hakeem’s still breaking into cars, luckily no one was killed

At midday April 8, 2022, on North Point Street near tourist-centric Fisherman’s Wharf, a witness saw a BMW[3] park next to a Honda.  Hakeem exited the BMW and broke into a Honda Accord.  Hakeem’s action was also captured on surveillance video.

Apparently, Dominic Spears, a parolee, was driving the BMW that he and Hakeem fled in at a high rate of speed after breaking into the Honda.  Inside the BMW were two cellphones; a purse; four back packs; two duffle bags; victims’ passports, birth certificates, and credit cards; two laptops; two tablets; four sets of earphones; and luggage. 

As witnessed by a half dozen citizens, Dominic sped through the intersection of southbound Columbus Avenue at Bay Street and ignored the red traffic light.   Dominic and Hakeem collided with one vehicle and then flipped an SF parking officer’s vehicle, trapping the officer inside.  Dominic and Hakeem did not stop.

Dominic and Hakeem proceeded south up the Jones Street hill and then pulled a Potrero exit.  This maneuver involves fleeing suspects putting a car in neutral on a hill, bailing out of the car, and letting the vehicle slide backwards unattended.  The intention is to distract law enforcement and witnesses, and to have either police or witnesses block the unoccupied car with their car so that innocents are not killed.  Luckily, the BMW rolled down the hill and came to rest at the Columbus Avenue median without killing anyone.  And before he fled, Hakeem made no effort to reach over and pull the emergency brake.

SFPD found and arrested both Dominic and Hakeem.

On April 12, 2022, Hakeem was put on an ankle monitor.   On April 26th, in Department 21, sources have told me that Hakeem was allowed to remove his ankle monitor so he could be free to return to his trade in the the tourist areas of San Francisco without being accounted for.

Boudin’s proxy lacked the credibility to analyze SF’s appeal to auto burglars

KQED recently hosted a debate on the Boudin recall.  With 100% consistency, Boudin has remained afraid of subjecting his policies to a debate format.  Instead, Boudin’s proxy in the KQED debate was former SFPD officer Rich Correia,[4] who speculated:   

I'd just like to say, after 35 years of police work, I don't believe criminals in their calculation are thinking about what Chesa Boudin is going to do or not do to them…. (or)… in the marketplace of the Hall of Justice, how will I do?

Boudin’s policies do create a magnetic appeal for criminal commuters, and Correia is wrong for several reasons:

1)    It is difficult to find Correia credible.  He spent 90% of his SFPD career in administration positions and consequently was completely removed from direct contact with criminals and victims.  Thus, Correia’s base of knowledge is less than even the most junior SFPD officers.

2)    Correia appeared slippery in the debate when he boasted, "I did not support Chesa Boudin in his race for district attorney,” and yet immediately after the election landed a job on Boudin’s transition team. 

3)    There is also the question of why Correia retired from his SFPD administrative position because of a disability (earning an advantageous tax-free pension) and yet was still healthy enough to complete similar administrative work on Boudin’s transition team. 

4)    Per Hakeem’s own words, he commuted from Antioch with the intention of breaking into tourists’ cars near Stow Lake and made the same commute to break into cars on April 8th. His partner, Dominic, commuted from Vallejo.  Why wouldn’t they come to San Francisco when they receive no prosecutorial consequences from our current DA?

5)    I have spoken to numerous police officers in San Mateo County who describe criminals leading them on northbound chases with the objective of being arrested in lenient San Francisco instead of San Mateo.  That is inconsistent with Correia’s analysis.

6)    As I described in my October 2021 article, SFPD’s narcotics officers followed numerous fentanyl dealers to their Oakland residences and arrested them there.  Why were these dealers choosing to sell fentanyl in San Francisco instead of near their residences in Oakland?

What is Hakeem doing today?

Hakeem who likes BMW’s and feeds on breaking into cars in the tourist-centric areas of San Francisco is surely breaking into cars today.  Why wouldn’t he?  The court system has guaranteed Hakeem that he won’t be GPS’d when he operates in the tourist areas, and Boudin’s criminal justice reform has ensured Hakeem there are no consequences for his participation in violent acts of robbing victims and crashing into innocent drivers. 

Over a dozen innocents have been killed because of Boudin’s criminal justice reform.  Thank God no one was killed on April 8th because Boudin kept Hakeem out of jail with a disturbing the peace misdemeanor conviction on his Stow Lake armed robbery.

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[1] For filed, you can substitute Boudin’s other terms: “charged, take action, held accountable, or prosecute.”  All terms that mean Boudin merely read the police report and never pursued a felony conviction.

[2] Adding to the evidence that the decline in auto boostings were attributable to routing calls to 3-1-1, per SFPD’s Compstat, other property crimes did not experience a decline from 2017 to Covid 2020.  Other larcenies increased: 2017 14,963, 2018 16,221, and 2019 15,373.

[3] This was not the same BMW that was used in the Stow Lake robbery.

[4] Correia is also the face of Boudin’s expensive television campaign funded by out-of-San Francisco donors.