San Francisco police arrest 14-year-old girl accused of stealing over $30K in organized retail thefts

San Francisco police said the arrest followed an investigation into a string of retail thefts between April 11 and November 24. The girl was part of a group of other suspects, who have not yet been identified, that targeted multiple stores in the 800 block of Market Street, including high-end retailers, according to the Daily Mail.

The suspects netted between $140 and $6,600 worth of merchandise each time.

The girl has been booked on charges including felony organized retail theft, second-degree burglary, and grand theft. Authorities connected her to 15 thefts.

Police sent out a bulletin for the teen's arrest for a connection to the robberies and an outstanding warrant from Alameda County.

The girl was arrested on Friday when police responded to a theft in progress at a store on Market Street. She has been booked into the San Francisco Juvenile Justice Center.

The arrest comes as San Francisco struggles to contain a rise in crime that has desecrated the Golden City over the past few years, which has resulted in a mass exodus of businesses and residents.

The Tenderloin District in particular, which is where the teen allegedly committed the slew of retail thefts, is at the epicenter of criminal activity in San Francisco. The once bustling corridor has been overrun by criminals, homeless vagrants, and open-air drug use.

The San Francisco Police Department reported that 28,620 reports of larceny theft and 2,651 reports of burglary have been made this year. However, that number is down from the 61,715 larceny thefts reported to police last year.

Local, state, and federal agencies have poured money into the area since June. But this year's fatal drug overdoses in the city are expected to set a record, and 20 percent of drug-related crimes that have been reported have happened within a block of Market Street, according to Daily Mail.

Over the past year, iconic staples have announced their departures from San Francisco including Nordstroms, Walgreens, and Whole Foods. One business owner, who has a smoke shop that was robbed, said the city was worse than Afghanistan, which is the country he immigrated to the US to escape from.