I left. I think the area is beautiful but I couldn’t believe it when I called the cops as two men had broke the windows of a CVS down the street from salesforce tower and we’re making drugs on the sidewalk out front when the 911 operator said “what do you want us to do?” in response.
So yes, the DA definitely has a big hand in this.
2. It’s a pandemic with much of the last 9 months in lockdown.
3. The numbers in certain categories are much higher than reported because most people have given up and don’t bother reporting
What’s interesting to me is that violent crime has indisputably not increased since Boudin was elected, yet his critics are constantly using the details of specific violent crimes as a rhetorical cudgel, insinuating that Boudin personally caused a wave of violent crime that simply is not happening.
Isn’t that amazing? Wait until you see the data behind the black lives matter narrative. It too says precisely the opposite of what everyone thinks.
Also, it's hard to make comparisons between 2019 and 2020; the pandemic has changed a lot of things, including crime patterns. The petty crimes that are up are often crimes of opportunity[1], and people being locked up in their homes has provided a lot of added opportunity. But I feel like there's less opportunity for violent crime when people aren't out and about as much.
[0] Someone broke into my garage last summer and stole my bicycle; given where I live, it's not something I'd expect pre-pandemic when there was a lot more foot traffic and fewer people desperate for cash. Edit: to corroborate a sibling's comment, I didn't bother reporting the theft as I didn't expect anything useful to come of it. In hindsight, I probably should have, just to keep crime stats more accurate.
[1] On the flip side, muggings are also a crime of opportunity, but require people to be out and about, often late at night, which hasn't been the case so much over the last year, so I imagine muggings are down.
The interesting thing is that Boudin only won because of instant run-off voting. Both the moderate and conservative candidates won more votes, but not 50%, and Boudin had the name recognition to be many people's second choice.
[1] It's not just the policies of trying to avoid unnecessary and ineffective incarceration, it's that Boudin offers zero alternatives. For example, to justify failing to press felony charges for a violent burglary against a repeat violent offender who would a week later kill two people, Boudin explained that his office had forwarded the matter to the person's parole officer. But did they ever follow up to see if the parole officer had decided to revoke parole or attempt to reign in their parolee at all? AFAIK, no, the DA's office simple threw the matter over the fence. It just boggles the mind. Boudin's policies are simply a dereliction of his responsibilities, pure and simple. It's a real-life Batman movie where a corrupt or inept DA simply stops enforcing the law. Or like if the Joker was elected the DA. It really puts the cops in a bind. Why bother arresting someone when you know they're going to walk that same day, return to doing exactly the same thing, and with little chance the DA would prosecute? (Zero chance of prosecution for property crimes, mind you.) I mean, in this absurd context such an arrest could be argued to be a form of harassment. And, to reiterate, that's not an exaggerated or hyperbolic characterization of the situation. It's gotten so bad that the police are using Twitter to name and shame some of the more egregious cases (of which there are many), and AFAIK nobody else in city government nor the press is chastising the police for playing political games that in any other context would be unacceptable.
Are you also saying that it’s OK for political opponents of the DA to then use bad outcomes caused by the police, purposefully not doing their jobs in order to sabotage the DA, as a reason to recall the DA?
If the police really are standing aside and allowing people to be victimized, and threatening to do it until they get what they want, that sounds a lot like a hostage situation to me, and I don’t think there’s any way to justify that.
Except in this case the DA adheres to a criminal justice theory that is so absurdly radical that their policy is to, e.g., never press serious charges (i.e. charges that potentially come with incarceration) for property crimes because they believe (not entirely unreasonably) the criminal justice system is irredeemably corrupt, property crimes are less harmful to society than the incarceration norms (not nearly as reasonable), and that by taking such a radical approach he might induce structural change elsewhere in the system (notwithstanding that, like in the parolee case, he doesn't actually try to make sure that change is happening). Moreover, robbing people at gun point is a property crime, not the type of violence exception that warrants prosecution and incarceration. That's Boudin. I've never actually heard a meaningful defense of his decisions. At best his small cadre of supporters seem to rely on their faith in his abstract principles to quietly console themselves, including the wife of the famous private investigator recently killed in the street by thieves, whom he was photographing while they robbed someone else.[1] Everybody else in the city, left, right, and center, is basically just slack-jawed. But he's an elected official with independent powers. The process for removal is well underway. I'll eat a hat if the removal fails.
FWIW, he seems like a very intelligent person with strong convictions, and while too radical for my tastes, I could respect someone who put in the effort and followup required. He seems to have many of the qualities needed for someone to have any chance of succeeding in that regard.[2] But like conservatives who advocate and practice malign neglect in a misguided attempt to subvert and extinguish the administrative state, his approach is indistinguishable from nihilism, and that's indefensible for somebody entrusted with a public office, particularly the DA's office, which at least in principle is only quasi-political.
[1] Of course, since they actually ended up killing someone, Boudin's office is prosecuting them. But when you invite so much risk-free property crime, these sorts of "accidental" physical assaults and murders are inevitable.
[2] Though, his credibility is increasingly suspect as he fumbles to explain his office's decisions and square them with facial claims about prosecuting all crimes. It's clear he's begun playing semantic word games. His office may nominally have a policy of prosecuting all property crimes, but if you only require a fine or restitution and take incarceration off the table for failure to meet terms or even to show up to court at all, especially when people are what civil trial lawyers call "judgment proof", the claim has no substance.
Just so we’re clear on the facts — Homicides have not increased under Chesa Boudin. Did you write melodramatic prose about any of the homicides that occurred under the last DA? Do the homicides that have occurred under Boudin just “feel different” to you? What is it exactly? Because homicides are not getting worse in any appreciable way in San Francisco, but suddenly, a certain kind of person loves to talk about them.
No, they are saying 1) it makes sense that the police would stop arresting people if they know they'll just be released, 2) it makes sense the cops wouldn't try and cover for the DA when he will use them as a scapegoat later.