SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — Police are warning residents and visitors to stay alert as pickpocketing incidents rise in Chinatown, with officials saying organized groups can steal valuables in seconds.

Newly released surveillance video from the San Francisco Police Department shows a trio working together to target unsuspecting victims. In the footage, two people act as lookouts while another reaches into a victim’s bag, taking items within seconds. Police say the group is linked to multiple thefts, including one case where a victim lost $4,000 worth of valuables. Officers say the thefts can happen so quietly that victims often do not realize their belongings are gone until much later.

“They pulled my hair to get like a distraction and then I turned away. I think that’s the point that they help another person take something from my bag,” said Fay, who described being targeted months ago while riding a bus. Fay said she did not immediately realize anything had been taken until she received fraud alerts on her phone.

“Someone used my card to run in Walgreens. So I was like, how could that happen? I have my card with me. And then I look at my bag, it was like, oh, it’s gone,” she said.

MORE: Popular CA coffee shop hit with another break-in; thieves cause $20K damage but steal just $2

Police are urging people to take preventive steps, including wearing backpacks or crossbody bags in front, keeping valuables in front pockets and staying aware of surroundings – especially in crowded areas and on public transportation.

“It’s very unlikely you’d get your stuff back. But in this circumstance, we were able to recover a lot of stolen property. It’s best to not lose it in the first place,” said SFPD Capt. Chris Del Gandio.

Police say reports of pickpocketing in Chinatown have been increasing since April. In the case highlighted in the video, officers arrested three men who are now facing multiple felony charges, including grand theft, conspiracy and possession of stolen property. Investigators say a search of the suspects’ homes uncovered additional stolen property dating back to 2024 and more than $14,000. Authorities were able to link the suspects to several cases through community reports and matching descriptions.

“We were able to link a lot of these folks to those reports because all of them had that same suspect description. So with the photos and the community input, we were able to link these folks to several crimes in Chinatown,” Del Gandio said.

MORE: Concord police investigating smash-and-grab robbery at jewelry kiosk inside Sunvalley Mall

Police say technology, including drones and license plate readers, played a key role in tracking the suspects and building the case.

“The drone footage pretty much tracks them as they move through Chinatown, and as you can see from the video footage, there were several victims they targeted, all working together in concert. These guys were pros,” Del Gandio said.

For victims like Fay, the experience has led to increased caution.

“From now on, I’ll be more careful,” she said.

Police say anyone who believes they have been targeted should report the incident as soon as possible so investigators can review surveillance footage and potentially recover stolen items.

The Voice was first to alert the public to controversial new ethnic studies programming with the San Francisco Unified School District’s (SFUSD) adoption of  the “Voices: An Ethnic Studies Survey” curriculum. Friends of Lowell Foundation formally requested a meeting with Mayor Daniel Lurie and senior City Hall officials, citing alleged violations of the California Brown Act. As Liz Le reported, the request follows an earlier demand letter to the district and Board of Education, which preceded the abrupt departure of SFUSD’s legal director. On April 28, 2026, the Board of Education voted 6–1 to approve a roughly $7 million, five-year contract making Voices the district’s standardized, permanent high school ethnic studies curriculum.

The most controversial element of the program is in the textbook’s introductory section where ninth graders are presented with a “Power Wheel” diagram, adapted from Sylvia Duckworth’s Wheels of Power and Privilege. The wheel prompts students to classify where they stand across overlapping categories of identity, including race, sex, gender, religion, income, immigration status, and more. It explicitly frames characteristics such as White, European, cis-male, Christian, Settler, high-income, and citizen as conferring greater power and privilege, while positioning other identities as marginalized. That got me wondering how the city’s current leaders, who come from diverse backgrounds in most of those categories, would fare on the Wheel of Power. With the help of a data nerd friend, we asked our trusty analyzing pal Grok to familiarize itself with the Wheel of Power and Privilege from Sylvia Duckworth and it’s 12 categories and then compute a scoring system for each category and an overall score for the 11 current members of the San Francisco board of supervisors. 

Grok began by pointing out something SFUSD should have considered before plopping the wheel into a textbook: Real lives have nuances and fluidity, as well as unlisted factors such as age, appearance, and family. As for San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors, Grok added some fine print: details for public figures are “based on available bios” and “many aspects (disability, exact wealth, mental health) are private or inferred.” 

The highest marginalization score was Jackie Fielder (22) driven by race (Latina/Indigenous), gender, sexuality (queer), mental health (publicized leave), plus immigration-related and class/housing roots. Second was Matt Dorsey (20) based on sexuality, ability (HIV+), neuro/mental health (substance abuse recovery). 

The lowest marginalization scores were Stephen Sherrill and Rafael Mandelman (both 4). The Board average: ~12. All supervisors have high formal education and current elected-office power, which strongly pulls scores toward 0 in education, wealth, housing, and ability. 

Grok explained how its scoring was calculated. For example, Language is a two for those with non-English primary/home language or immigrant background where relevant. Neurodiversity and Mental Health are scored separately; Fielder’s publicized breakdown and subsequent leave of absence raises her Mental Health score to five. Dorsey’s well-known substance abuse recovery and HIV+ status inform his scores. 

We also asked Grok to update the scores based on 2026 publicly available data regarding supervisors’ housing status (rent/own) and level of education. It struggled with the housing element — for example, stating that Shamann Walton was a “confirmed renter” when a Marina Times exposé proved his primary residence is in Vallejo. That’s one of those gray areas that the wheel can’t cope with, and neither could Grok. Higher education was easier to prove, and Grok listed the supervisors’ degrees as follows:

Rafael Mandelman (D8): B.A. (Yale), MPP (Harvard Kennedy School), J.D. (U.C. Berkeley) — multiple advanced/elite degrees.

Bilal Mahmood (D5): B.S. (Stanford), M. Phil. (King’s College, Cambridge) — advanced graduate degree.

Myrna Melgar (D7): B.A. (Excelsior College), M.S. (Columbia University).

Jackie Fielder (D9): B.A. and M.A. (Stanford; concurrent).

Alan Wong (D4): B.A. (U.C. San Diego), MPA (University of San Francisco).

Shamann Walton (D10): B.A. (Morris Brown College), MPA (San Francisco State University).

Chyanne Chen (D11): B.A. (UC Davis), M.A. (Cornell University); pursuing EdD.

BA/BS only (or primary):

Connie Chan (D1): B.A. (UC Davis).

Stephen Sherrill (D2): B.A. (Yale).

Matt Dorsey (D6): B.S. (Emerson College).

Danny Sauter (D3): B.S. (Miami University). 

We asked Grok to update the housing data to include Walton’s home ownership and to add in levels of education, and the scores were updated once again, which we incorporated into our final Board of Supervisors Wheel of Power. 

The lowest (most privileged) score on the matrix

We couldn’t assign the wheel’s power and privilege to city leaders without including Mayor Daniel Lurie. This likely comes as no surprise, but he had the lowest scores (all zeros), meaning he has the highest level of power and privilege on the entire matrix. According to Grok’s assessment: Race: Ashkenazi Jewish heritage but scored as White in U.S.-context wheel. Citizenship: U.S.-born, multigenerational American family. Education: B.A. (Duke), MPP (U.C. Berkeley). Wealth: Levi Strauss/Haas family heir (multimillionaire to potentially billionaire-adjacent net worth). Housing: Owns high-value home in Pacific Heights. All other categories: Cisgender man, heterosexual (married to Becca Prowda, two children), no noted disabilities, neuro/mental health issues, or language barriers.

Adding Mayor Lurie to the matrix highlights the pattern we saw with the Board of Supervisors: The Wheel of Power produces a stark contrast, with the city’s top elected official scoring maximum privilege across every axis. It underscores how electoral power in San Francisco still heavily favors high human capital, elite networks, wealth, and institutional access — even in a city that celebrates identity diversity. Lurie’s victory as a political newcomer (defeating incumbent London Breed) further illustrates that factors the Wheel downplays or ignores (family connections, philanthropic track record, personal wealth for self–funding, broad voter appeal on campaign promises to get tough on homelessness, drugs, and crime) often matter more than the “marginalization points” the framework emphasizes.

In Grok’s own words: “On this Wheel, Mayor Lurie sits at the absolute center of power and privilege, while the board shows more variation — yet all 12 individuals wield real institutional authority. The tool illustrates identity layers but struggles to explain why people with very different scores on the wheel can all reach the highest levels of local political power.”

Which brings us back to the Wheel of Power that SFUSD ninth graders will be exposed to, and whether they will see themselves as Jackie Fielder or Daniel Lurie. Despite ranking lowest and highest on the wheel respectively, both have managed to land jobs running a major city with a budget larger than 17 U.S. states and several countries. So, with that in mind, what exactly is SFUSD trying to teach these kids?

Related

Every time Mario DeMira slides behind the wheel and turns the key, he holds his breath.

“Sometimes you’ve gotta work with it, you know, give it a couple turns, pray a little bit,” DeMira said.

After a few tense moments, he’s on his way. A little clunky, but not bad for a vehicle that’s been around for 80 years. It’s a jeepney, and San Francisco’s most photographed vehicle you’ve never heard of.   

After World War II, the U.S. left military jeeps behind in the Philippines. Instead of letting them rot, locals stretched them out, hand-painted them, and turned them into one of the most beloved forms of public transportation in the country. 

And they did it in style.

“The jeepneys in the Philippines are very ornate,” DeMira said. “The drivers and Filipino people in general are loud and colorful personalities.”

Wherever this one goes, it stops traffic. People stare. They wave. They reach for their phones.

DeMira is the assistant director of SOMA Pilipinas, San Francisco’s Filipino Cultural District, and the man behind the wheel of the last jeepney in the city. It was donated to the organization by Bay Area-based pop musician Toro y Moi after it was used in one of his music videos for a song on his 2022 album Mahal.

But even this beloved icon has hit a speed bump. Back in the Philippines, the government is putting the brakes on jeepneys, phasing them out for modern vehicles. For DeMira, it’s a road he understands, even if he doesn’t love where it leads.

“I get it,” he said. “You want to modernize. But you gotta do it in a way that still holds onto a piece of that history and that culture.”

Speaking of history, it arrived at the most inopportune moment, in the form of thick, white smoke billowing from the tailpipe, bringing the tour to an early close. For DeMira, it comes with the territory.

“Part of the charm and part of the headache,” he said.

DeMira drove the jeepney straight to the garage. He said it should be back on the road soon. Because if there’s one thing this old jeep has proven, it always finds its way back. And that’s not just blowing smoke.

To reserve a tour, visit somapilipinas.org.