Cynical view. I called the police for a theft, they found the guy and brought my goods back within 24 hours. I expressed amazement and they said "yeah this is our job we are pretty good at it."
Also most of the problems are due to a lack of prosecution (in the SF area). Police can't do much if criminals just get immediately released without consequence.
Like I said, even if the police do find and arrest this person, it's still up to the courts to prosecute. It's a lot of work between the court proceedings with testimonies and evaluations to get a conviction. Some regions like California are very reluctant to bring charges and just release them instead, which is why police will avoid dealing with the matter in the first place.
That's their problem, not mine. As far as I'm concerned, police should do what they say they do on the tin. What happened was my friend got punched in the face and what we wanted was for the police to at least make it appear like they were interested in reducing the ambient amount of face punchings in their jurisdiction.
> "appear like they were interested"
They're interested but they're not there to appease. As I already said several times before, police need laws and courts to back them up or their work is ineffective. You should contact your maylor and local DA about why that jurisdiction has so many face punchings by the homeless in the first place.