By Emily Mibach
Daily Post Staff Writer
For the past couple of years, TV newscasts have featured groups of shoplifters looting stores in California and running out with expensive merchandise. Now Gov. Gavin Newsom wants to combat the trend by handing out $267 million to local police agencies and prosecutors to target “organized retail theft” as well as the thieves who remove catalytic con-verters from parked cars.
San Mateo County will get $15.6 million, Santa Clara County $11.7 million and Palo Alto $5 million.
Palo Alto plans to use the money to have officers at “hot spot” locations – likely Stanford Shopping Center – for 10 hours a day. The department will also use the money to buy and install technology from a company called Starchase that allows police to track cars they’re chasing, so they can find a car if they lose sight of it.
Police will put the new system on 25 cars.
One product Starchase sells is a launcher that shoots a GPS tracking tag onto another vehicle, allowing police to follow the car on a real-time map.
“Law enforcement can then plan and coordinate an informed tactical response to make a safe arrest while maintaining community and officer safety,” according to Starchase’s website.
Money for prosecution Newsom is handing out the money through a state agency, California Board of State and Community Corrections, which is also considering giving $2 million to the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s office to provide a prosecutor and an investigator to handle all organized retail theft cases.
The announcement from Newsom comes a week after San Mateo County Supervisor David Canepa appeared on Fox News to call for the repeal of Prop. 47, the law that says a person can steal up to $950 and only face a misdemeanor.
Prop. 47 was approved by voters in 2014 to lower the population in the state’s jails and prisons.
Some have blamed Prop. 47 for the jump in organized retail theft.
“Enough with these brazen smash-and-grabs. With an unprecedented $267 million investment, Californians will soon see more takedowns, more police, more arrests and more felony prosecutions. When shameless criminals walk out of stores with stolen goods, they’ll walk straight into jail cells,” Newsom said in a statement.