San Jose Mayor: W.H. Is Wrong That Pandemic Is Root Cause of Smash and Grab Crime

On Friday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “America’s Newsroom,” San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo (D) disagreed with White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki’s assertion that the pandemic is a root cause of the recent wave of smash and grab retail thefts and argued that criminals are at the root of the crimes.

Co-host Dana Perino asked, “[T]he White House yesterday said that they believe that the pandemic is at the root cause of a lot of this smash and grab crime. Do you think that’s right?”

Liccardo answered, “No. I think criminals are at the root of smash and grab crimes and criminals come up with new arrangements every time that we catch them on the old ones. And this is just the nature of criminal enforcement. Look, I’m a former prosecutor, we’ve just got to be more nimble. We’ve got to use technological tools and we need to be smart about how we use our police departments. Here in San Jose, we don’t defund. We make sure we do all we can to ensure officers are out there on the street. We also try to keep guns off the street. So, this isn’t about Democratic or Republican policies. This is about being smart.”

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