The police officer said he was glad to have the license plate number but that robbery is so low-profile in the courts right now that even if they did catch him, without video proof, the thieves would be let go within a day or so.
No, the officer didn't take action based upon what they saw, but it's reasonable to conclude that a police report was filled out for this incident.
Reasons cops file reports include:
An intention to investigate the crime
The victim requests a report for an insurance claim
In this case they know it’s a hard crime to investigate. Based on the articles I’ve read, it seems thieves in SF often use stolen cars, so even the plates may not be that helpful. Moreover we have serious crimes like attempted murder and illegal gun possession in SF going un-prosecuted, so the cops cannot assume an arrest could lead to anything at all.
Additionally filing a report with little hope for an arrest makes the precincts numbers look bad. Those numbers will get reported in neighborhood association meetings, and those association people (I’m one of them) can be a real pain in the ass to the politicians (i.e. the boss’s boss’s boss).
It’s just not a good incentive structure and if we were going to do a clean redesign IMO the politicians and cops should have as little control over the official statistics as possible.