The district attorney in charge of a Californian city terrorized by a swarm of masked burglars this week received more than $1million from a group backed by liberal billionaire George Soros.
Contra Costa DA Diana Becton has overseen a 10 percent surge in crime in the city of Antioch, where burglaries are up by a third, car thefts jumped by a fifth, and rapes have gone up by 7.5 percent.
The 71-year-old’s re-election campaign received funds from the California Justice & Public Safety political action committee (PAC) in 2022, as she faced against off against prosecutor Mary Knox.
At the time, Knox targeted Becton over the funds, claiming, ‘An out-of-state billionaire along with special interest groups have now dropped an unprecedented $1M to defeat my campaign and influence voters for District Attorney in this local election.’
Public records show that her campaign benefited from a total of $1,002,000 from the group – with Soros contributing $652,000.
Contra Costa DA Diana Becton, whose campaign received money from billionaire liberal George Soros, has overseen a 10 percent surge in crime in the city of Antioch
Public records show that her campaign benefited from a total of $1,002,000 from the group – with Soros contributing $652,000
Becton was first elected as the district’s DA in 2018 after working as a lawyer and judge in the state.
She ran on a platform focused on criminal justice reform and restoring the public’s trust in law enforcement.
Antioch landed in the news this week after surveillance footage caught a gang of at least eight masked people ransacking parked cars in the middle of the night, plundering whatever they could find.
Residents said they were woken by the commotion at 2am on July 6, but were too frightened to confront the gang.
The area is generally a quiet one, spared the serious crime seen elsewhere in the troubled Bay Area. But the sheer size of this crime gang stunned local cops.
‘When I see them I didn’t know what was happening. I was like, ‘I hope they don’t try to go through the garage,” said Mike Allen, whose car was among those broken in to.
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Sgt. Price Kendall said the scale of the ransacking was unusual, because thieves usually worked in smaller groups.
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‘It is unusual that you see that many people, a large group, would go around looking into cars and walking the neighborhood,’ Kendall said.
He did not say whether any arrests had been made, but noted that many of the cars appeared to be unlocked and the thieves appeared to be targeting cars they could rob with minimum noise, and maximum speed.
‘There were definitely crimes of opportunity,’ Kendall said.
‘Through one of the videos, you can see they were able to walk up to the car. The car was more than likely unlocked.’
Resident Allen said he saw members of the gang going through his family’s vehicles, but felt powerless to stop them.
‘They broke into my girlfriend’s car,’he said. ‘She had her baby bag in the car. They went in there rummaging through everything.’
He said his neighbors had similar stories.
Antioch is 45 miles inland from San Francisco – a city which is seeing soaring theft.
Contra Costa County was among the counties hardest hit by Covid-19,and Becton was slammed in 2021 for holding a backyard wedding while the state was on lockdown.
She admitted the party took place but denied it broke Covid rules, which at the time allowed outdoor religious ceremonies but banned wedding receptions.
