A sheriff’s lament against retail theft is right on Target

Sacramento County, Calif., Sheriff Jim Cooper was justly outraged when he discovered that big-box retailer Target was refusing to allow his officers to “contact suspects inside” their stores — that is, to stop and arrest crooks in the act. 

That’s despite the chain begging the cops for help. 

Per Cooper, Target fears negative social media and press resulting from an in-store arrest. 

To be fair, a national chain does have to worry about becoming the next victim in a George Floyd-style crusade: Shoppers have plenty of other options. 

But it’s also true that the mega-retailer fell early and hard for wokeism, embracing both BLM’s toxic ideas and gender extremism; its refusal to work fully with the cops fits that foolish pattern.  

The bigger picture, however, is even uglier. 

It’s not only Target refusing to step up in the fight against retail crime, which endangers the lives of shoppers and low-wage workers, causes massive economic damage and shreds the social fabric. 

In deep-blue strongholds like California, the authorities actively conspire on behalf of criminals. 

Take Los Angeles, where a new no-cash bail policy has given a permanent “get out of jail free” card to most thugs. 

And that’s atop prior statewide “reforms” that have sent crime skyward since 2021. 

LA DA George Gascón is firmly on the side of the lawbreakers. As are huge swaths of the city’s political establishment (to say nothing of pro-crime Gov. Gavin Newsom). 

Which means that if Target were to allow aggressive law enforcement in its stores, Gascon & Co. would be waiting in the wings to crucify the company if a perp got hurt or killed, which is always a risk. 

And don’t forget the message that criminal justice “reforms” like LA’s send to cops: 

Don’t do your jobs because we don’t have your backs. 

The same is true in San Francisco, despite a change in prosecutorial administration. 

And it’s true in New York as well. 

The results are familiar and catastrophic. 

Goods locked up, as often homeless pillagers empty shelves of everything that isn’t, with sluggish to nonexistent responses from the police. 

So Cooper is dead right to highlight the hypocrisy of Target, which wants law enforcement without any actual enforcement. 

But don’t forget the elected officials who bear the real responsibility wherever hard-left pro-crime policies have caused chaos.