Videos of grocery security guards busting shoplifters — sometimes, violently — have gone viral online in recent weeks. In the comments, viewers lament locked cases, labyrinthine entrances and exits, and store closures, blaming chronic theft. They’re also shockingly unsympathetic to the people being chased and knocked around by security guards, suggesting a “tough-on-crime” hardening by some Bay Area shoppers.
Depictions of high-speed chases, shoves, and red-handed thieves, many of whom appear unhoused, are being celebrated for enforcing so-called “loss prevention” in the city that was once diagnosed by out-of-town news organizations as suffering from a “shoplifting epidemic.” (Worth noting is that much of the data cited by these critics was ginned up by retail lobbyists.)
The videos first appeared on TikTok and were posted by the same account, woahwoa64, which has since been deleted. However, a Redditor screen-recorded the videos and shared them in the r/sanfrancisco subreddit. One shared to Gazetteer SF, which depicts a bust at the Safeway in Mission Bay, was taken down by the subreddit’s moderators for “rage baiting,” though the others still stand.
The videos, seemingly all recorded by an unidentified security guard, appear to be filmed on Meta glasses, which have become increasingly ubiquitous on city streets and in private businesses. First introduced in 2023 as a partnership with Ray-Ban and then Oakley, the glasses record video and audio that can then be uploaded via the cloud to users’ Meta AI app. A small white light blinks when the glasses are actively recording.
The angle at which these videos were filmed gives the viewer a Ready Player One-style point of view as the anonymous, plain-clothed guard grabs and shoves people who appear to be stealing. In one video, a woman is shoved to the ground at the Safeway on Market Street in the Castro. In another, a man is chased out of the Mission Bay Safeway and across the street, where he is pushed to the ground by the guard. The viewer is identifying with the guard, whether they want to or not.
Security guards at the recorded Safeways appear to be employed by GardaWorld. A representative from Albertson’s, which owns Safeway, told Gazetteer SF that employees are prohibited from collecting and/or distributing footage of customers in the store. It’s unclear whether the same rules apply to third-party employees contracted by Safeway. (GardaWorld did not respond to our request for comment ahead of publication.) Safeway also previously contracted additional security from the San Francisco Police Department to assist with preventing theft, according to data obtained by the San Francisco Chronicle last year.
Allison Maxie, an SFPD spokesperson, confirmed to Gazetteer SF that its Organized Retail Crime (ORC) task force collaborates with Safeway Asset Protection to arrest and charge theft suspects, though ORC is focused on organized, repeat offenders, not random solo shoplifters. Any time an incident report is authored, businesses and individuals may upload relevant photos, video, or audio to assist with the investigation. However, Maxie said whether footage obtained on security guards’ personal devices can be shared to the police, or anywhere else, is ultimately controlled by a business’s specific policies.
Safeways in the city have had a notoriously rocky run. The company has removed self-checkout sections, installed pesky anti-theft gates, contracted security and SFPD, and in some cases, vacated, turning neighborhoods into food deserts.
In 2025, the intersection of Fourth and King streets, which hosts the Mission Bay Safeway, saw a 150 percent increase in shoplifting reports, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. That intersection comprised 30 percent of larceny theft reports in the Mission Bay neighborhood last year. (At the time, Supervisor Matt Dorsey attributed the spike to changes in reporting.) Larceny theft is the most common crime in the city at large.
Grocery stores are only the latest type of business to deploy various modes of surveillance to identify customers. Last week, Gazetteer SF reported that several bars in the Castro used a scanner to keep a database of patron data to curb bad behavior.
Despite the videos’ dystopian vibe, Redditors seem to be in favor of using force to prevent petty theft at their neighborhood grocery store. “I get the outrage but food banks exist. We all pay increased prices for the shrinkage this causes,” one person commented. “Not to mention they end up closing locations, reducing hours, putting everything behind glass so you have to press a button and wait 40 minutes to buy toothpaste; it makes quality of life worse for all of us.”
On another video, someone commented, “After losing the Safeway, Walgreens, and CVS by my place and now have to commute to get groceries, I 100% agree with this.”
