What else did you really expect?

Criminals don’t get arrested. Even when they get busted, they’ll be quickly cut loose. But anyone trying to stop them will have the book thrown at them. Crime is fine, but vigilantism is a grave threat.

I briefly covered the ongoing crime wave in Oakland, much of it directed at Asians, last week.

Oakland’s Chinatown had suffered over 20 attacks against the elderly and women in two weeks. 

California Democrats legalized shoplifting. Some of the videos capture criminals boldly stealing money and property from stores while knowing that nothing is going to happen to them.

Some of the criminals escalated their attacks from robbing stores to mugging the elderly. And the same Democrat politicians who supported legalizing robbing stores expressed concern.

But when Democrat DAs free criminals as soon as they’re arrested, when they even bother arresting them at all, when someone like Yahya Muslim could be convicted twice of  “assault with force likely to produce great bodily injury” without ever serving time, that’s inevitable. 

In January, there were 15 murders in Oakland, up from only one murder in January of last year.

The Oakland City Council had voted to create a task force to defund the police department by half. 

Meanwhile, local business owners are hiring armed guards, forming volunteer patrols, and calling for a larger police presence. 

A store owner stood up to the thugs.

A member of the community told KTVU the store owner saw a thief knock down a woman in her 30s to steal her camera. The store owner intervened. After a struggle, the store owner fired four gunshots. 

Oakland police confirmed no one was hit and the suspect got away in a vehicle.

Now the store owner is under arrest.

A store owner in Oakland’s Chinatown ended up behind bars Monday night after using a handgun to fight back in the latest of a string of violent crimes in the neighborhood.

At about 5:30 p.m., a liquor store owner saw a woman being robbed of her camera at the corner of Ninth and Franklin. After seeing the woman knocked to the ground, the owner ran out with a gun, ordering the assailant to stop and reportedly firing four shots.

The suspect fled in a vehicle, but when police arrived, they took the business owner into custody.

As they look for a way to cool things down in their community, Chinatown officials and police walked door to door Tuesday afternoon, assuring business owners that they are taking the recent series of violent robberies seriously.

Sure. The robber is on the loose. The guy who tried to stop him was arrested. And residents are urged not to defend themselves.

Oakland Police Chief LeRonne Armstrong is urging residents not to arm themselves, after a resident opened fire on a robbery suspect Monday night in Chinatown.

“When weapons are fired in our community, there could be unintended victims,” said Armstrong Tuesday afternoon. “We don’t want our business owners or others to begin to arm themselves. We would really prefer them to be good witnesses.”

So they can testify and then watch the thug who robbed them stroll away, or more likely not even be arrested in the first place.