San Francisco mothers, including a pregnant woman, and nannies are being targeted in violent, broad-daylight robberies at the hands of masked minors in the crime-ridden city.
Police have connected a group of teenagers to at least 11 such attacks last week in Noe Valley and nearby areas, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
The young suspects, wearing ski masks, allegedly pushed, and punched the female victims in order to steal their smartphones before escaping in a stolen runaway car, cops said.
One juvenile male suspect has since been arrested in connection to the string of robberies and police are searching for his alleged co-conspirators, the local paper reported.
The brazen crime in the affluent sections of the city has left residents on high alert.
The teens appeared to spare no mercy in the attacks, having victimized a pregnant woman and a person with a stroller in two cases, Noe Valley Supervisor Rafael Mandelman told the Chronicle.
One mother who asked to be identified by her initials CW for fear of retaliation, told the newspaper she was on her way to pick up her daughter from daycare last Monday when she was attacked.
She said she was pushing an empty stroller when a person in a gray ski mask hopped out of a car and knocked her to the sidewalk as he snatched her phone.
“I was shoved to the ground aggressively,” she said, adding that San Francisco police seemed reluctant to offer help.
A daycare worker who only provided her first name Laura told the publication that she too was violently robbed of her phone the same day while waiting for the train.
Her attacker punched her in the back and head, grabbed her phone and fled in a waiting getaway car, she said.
“The first thing I thought was that they didn’t have to hit me, they didn’t have to be so aggressive,” Laura said. “Then the anguish of knowing that they had taken my unlocked cell phone and that I had all my credit cards tied to my Apple Pay.”
A third, anonymous victim told the Chronicle she was slugged in the face as she was on her way to pick up her children from school last Tuesday afternoon.
She was speaking on her phone as she was across the street from a cafe when a young man in a black ski mask began falling her from behind.
She said she “felt heaviness” on her back and when she turned her head to look, the teen grabbed her hand that was holding the phone and punched her in the face, according to the outlet.
The suspect ran off with her phone, leaving the woman in tears and shock.
A bystander who witnessed the brutal mugging and comforted the woman said she had felt the same assailant following her but changed course and that’s when he allegedly picked his next victim.
“I heard her scream so loudly,” Nicole Saerom told the Chronicle. “It happened so fast. My heart was racing. I immediately felt fear, deep fear.”
Several other women said they have been the victims of similar phone robberies over the last week in posts online.
The day-time attacks in Noe Valley, also known as “stroller valley” due to its population of young families, left many residents uneasy.
“There is a problem in San Francisco if daily muggings are becoming the new normal,” Saerom said.
She added that it was particularly concerning that the assault she witnessed happened in broad daylight on a busy promenade where children and families often gather.
“While I appreciate that phones were stolen, the violence that went alongside these robberies is far more concerning,” the first victim CW told the Chronicle. “This is not just a ‘phone snatch’ situation. This is a targeted, violent attack against moms and caretakers.”
Robberies in San Francisco as a whole have been on the rise — with a 12% increase this year compared to the same period last year, the San Francisco Police Department’s data shows.
