Two stories this week illustrate just how decadent and dangerous the formerly proud city of San Francisco has become. In the first, RedState‘s Sister Toldjah reported on how conservative author Shelby Steele and his filmmaker son Eli were robbed of tens of thousands of dollars in equipment Wednesday as they tried to film a documentary. The police were overwhelmed—as they always are in San Francisco due to defunding—and were of no help. The irony? The movie the Steeles were making “explores how defunding the police has hurt society.”

Then on Wednesday, ABC reporter Matt Gutman told his live audience that downtown San Francisco was simply too dangerous an area for his crew to film in. I remember watching news crews covering the ’92 L.A. riots, and during the George Floyd mayhem, you’d always find a reporter in a helmet roaming around describing the “mostly peaceful protests.”

Gutman himself was “a Jerusalem-based reporter for seven years, covering every major conflict in the Middle East,” according to his ABC bio. But downtown San Francisco? No—that’s simply too perilous.

Gutman’s piece aired on “Good Morning America” and focused on the “growing real estate dead zone” in the City by the Bay, exemplified by the mall company Westfield’s decision to stop paying on the over $500 million mortgage it carries for a property that is down to only 55 percent occupancy. But it was his last line that said more than all his other statistics and examples combined:

The Mayor [London Breed] noting that several metrics of crime are actually flat or down, but it is worth mentioning that we are not at Union Square or the Westfield Mall this morning because we have been advised it is simply too dangerous to be there at this hour. 

Watch:

Gutman told the truth and laid out the grim realities of what’s happening on the streets of ‘Frisco, which I’ll discuss shortly, but because he works for legacy corporate media, he quickly tried to backtrack on Twitter in an exchange with another user who blasted his reporting:

SF is full of problems, but this reporter @mattgutmanABC on ABC GMA said he couldn't wrap from Union Sq because it was "too dangerous". I have had picnics in the park. What sensational reporting. Say something: @DrewTumaABC7, @reggieaqui @jrstonelive!https://t.co/9W4JfjImuj

— Matthew Pearce (@mghtymatt) June 15, 2023

“I have had picnics in the park,” self-described social media strategist Matthew Pearce wrote—as if that magically solved all of SF’s problems. Gutman responded:

care to comment @mghtymatt ? I think for most regular folks walking around SF is fine. But camera crews seems to be targeted quite a bit, which is why our security advises us to avoid going live in multiple locations in SF https://t.co/TnWvRZG369

— Matt Gutman (@mattgutmanABC) June 15, 2023

“I think for most regular folks walking around SF is fine,” Gutman wrote. He just reported on why that is emphatically not true, and now he’s trying to blame it on his expensive equipment, suddenly ignoring the fact that you can’t even park your car in the city without it quickly getting broken into. He had moments before discussed the depravity occurring daily on the streets:

Union Square used to be the beating heart of San Francisco. But a recent survey found that since 2019, nearly 50 percent of all the stores here have left. Now it’s empty storefront after empty storefront… after empty storefront.

In the first quarter of the year, the city saw a 16 percent rise in robberies and a 41 percent spike in fentanyl deaths over the same period in 2022.

You’re seeing it all over right now. Companies are leaving the city.

Yeah, sounds safe to me, Matt.

(Read: RedState‘s expansive coverage of SF and the reasons why it’s anything but safe.)

Gutman next turned to Mayor Breed so she could gaslight us. “Is San Francisco dangerous?” he asked. Breed, of course, dodged the question:

Well, here’s the thing. San Francisco is a major city, and it has challenges. But let’s back up a little bit. You are talking about people who are leaving the city but not the people who are staying, expanding, coming to San Francisco.

What utter nonsense, Mayor. Why would we be talking about people moving to SF when its overall population is in a serious decline?

Gutman pointed out to his audience that San Francisco wasn’t the only city to be experiencing these problems:

It’s not just San Francisco. Other West Coast cities including Portland, Seattle and Los Angeles, are also suffering from a similar trend of downtown decay. 

Now I don’t mean to rag on this Gutman fellow; he seems perfectly nice and competent at his job. However, I would have preferred that he proved the first three letters of his last name and show some actual guts by telling the truth: all of these cities have something in common. They’re all run by liberals, they’ve all jumped on to the “defund the police” movement, they all have woke, soft-on-crime districts attorneys at the helm, and they all reward homelessness and illegal immigration.

And yet somehow, we’re somehow supposed to be shocked that a major news organization can’t even go into a downtown district after the sun sets. You reap what you sow.

Until Americans wake up, sadly, we’re going to see more and more of this. If they keep putting the same wannabe Marxists in charge, this will continue to be our new normal.

More ‘Frisco:

‘Police Have Been Defanged’: Filmmaker Unloads Over San Francisco Car Break-in (With an Assist From Elon)

Two Nordstrom Stores Bail From San Francisco, Reasons Cited Should Be a Wake up Call

Target Store in San Francisco Locks Entire Product Range Behind Security Glass