EDITORIAL: Who’s in trouble? Target targeted for calling the cops

What happened to a retailer in California sounds like an Abbott and Costello routine.

A Target store in Sacramento has been victimized by repeated thefts. After being robbed, store employees called the police. That doesn’t seem very controversial. Theft is against the law — barely in California, but still. The police investigate crimes and eventually arrest the bad guys. The criminals get sent to jail, which stops them from committing more crimes. This disincentive also deters future criminals.

But the theft reports made the Sacramento city attorney’s office very upset. At who? Not at the thieves. At Target — for calling the cops after being robbed. As the Sacramento Bee recently reported, the office threatened to charge the store with being a public nuisance. That could have led to a fine.

The absurdity of this makes answering “Who’s on first?” look straightforward.

What Sacramento officials did undermines the social contract. You can see that in the Declaration of Independence. It lays out man’s inalienable rights, like the “pursuit of happiness,” which includes property rights. It then states, “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed

Responding to theft isn’t just a local government’s job. It’s a core reason local government exists.

But it’s understandable that Sacramento officials would be upset. In 2014, California voters approved Proposition 47, which increased the threshold for felony shoplifting to $950. Stealing anything valued below that became a misdemeanor.

As leftist prosecutors bragged about not prosecuting people, thieves realized they faced little more than wrist slaps for stealing. With prosecutors who didn’t prosecute, police realized there was little point in arresting people. That’s especially true after the California Supreme Court significantly restricted cash bail in 2021. Eventually, many stores gave up even calling the police to report the crimes.

And when they do, it’s the store facing the threat of prosecution. That makes as much sense as “What’s on second.”

This November, Californians will have an opportunity to reverse course. They’ll vote on Proposition 36, which would increase penalties for various crimes, including repeated theft. If approved, it would become a felony for anyone with two previous theft convictions to steal. It would combine the value of stolen property in multiple thefts and allow a felony charge against anyone who cumulatively steals more than $950. It would also allow judges to increase penalties for “smash and grabs” conducted by mobs.

Are there enough Californians sick of crime to approve these relatively small changes? Who knows? But if there aren’t, expect the slow exodus from the state to continue.