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> I have been told from very well placed sources in the US Intelligence community this is probably a hit

do you realize how specifically you have to know the right person for an individual in the intel community to even remotely come close to knowing anything similar to this? not only are there over 100,000 that technically "work" in the intel community. 95% of those are not even in operations. even 5% of those in the field, 90% of those are working in intel related to external sources.

so what is that, we're down to the last .5% of individual who happen to work in operations, who happen to work on foreign/domestic actors within US who happen to focus in SF? yes, focus in SF, because people in the field don't have intel on what neighboring fields are doing unless they are "read-on." that's what sensitive comparmentalized information means--that you don't have any access unless you're directly involved with supporting that specific operation.

it's very highly likely that you're with some dweeb that works some support role, probably not even intel related. I can't even begin to tell you how many incompetent people work in this arena and how much even love to exaggerate and that they're part of something 'important'

I imagine even if the person doesn't know the specifics of the case, they can take a look at the police report and make a professional assessment on whether it was a random attack or something else. It's also possible the phrasing resulted in a miscommunication between the "intelligence professional" and the person upthread (they could have said something like "it wasn't random", and Bob's grieving friend referred to that as a hit)

In almost every random stabbing, the person doing it is arrested, no? To be clear, I'm talking about random, unplanned, and unmotivated stabbings, not premeditated robberies and other similar crimes.

very sensible, definitely can see your logic. thanks for sharing!

It also just occurred to me that there is no mention of a suspective motive in the report

    The police statement did not provide any details on the circumstances of the stabbing.

    “This is an open and active investigation. For that reason we are not releasing further information,” Officer Niccole Pacchetti, a public information officer, said in an email. “We will provide further details when they become available.”

If it was an obvious robbery, I would expect the police to be OK with mentioning that in their statement (in other words, saying valuables were taken and it looks like a somewhat random robbery).

And maybe his wallet/phone were taken, but if police thought it was an open-and-shut motive, I don't see why they wouldn't mention that.

If he was indeed the creator of Cash App, he could have been playing a part in the current SEC investigation:

https://hindenburgresearch.com/block/

The report was released just 2 weeks ago.

If you knew the kind of people that are my friend's neighbors. Basically you have the 0.01% of a country there, if you know people you know people, information reaches them way faster.

Not saying you're wrong to be doubtful, but I would imagine being connected in the same locality would get you closer to "the right person"

Forget I said anything. I made it up.

There was an interesting comment exchange on FT.com a few hours ago[1].

One person wrote:

> Lee’s former company, Block, is currently under investigation by the SEC after the app that he founded (Cash App) was alleged to have been facilitating money laundering. Wonder if there is a connection?

And another responded:

> A hitman isn't going to use a knife.

But when you think about it: if you didn't want something to look like a hit job, that's exactly what you would do – use a knife in downtown San Francisco at 2 AM – and nobody will be surprised.

Personally, I find it a little suspicious, that an important individual could have been murdered accidentally in a city with an average of 4 murders per month, just 2 weeks after the SEC opened an investigation into the platform he created[2].

Also, the place of the murder wasn't described as particularly dangerous at night by multiple locals[3][4].

[1] https://www.ft.com/content/f5a27cff-2582-4172-87a4-2861c43c2...

[2] https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/24/report-alleges-cash-app-frau...

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35453269

[4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35448995

Now you're getting it.

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/grapevine

My condolences for your loss.

Simultaneously, I don't understand your post. The second paragraph states "I have been told from very well placed sources in the US Intelligence community this is probably a hit." But then the rest of your post rails against the SF crime problem in general, finishing with "And now a good friend is fucking dead." Starting off by saying it was likely a hit would appear to indicate that SF's general crime problems (as bad as they may be) are largely irrelevant to this particular case.

To be fair, it's probably easier to organize a hit in a city where murder and crime are somewhat regular occurrences. Not that I am saying this was a hit.

Murder is not a common occurrence in SF, this thread is a bit insane.

> I have been told from very well placed sources in the US Intelligence community this is probably a hit.

Targeted hits and random street crime are quite different, no?

If we accept this framing, we might speculate further by imagining the "random street crime" part is either a cover-up or the murderer intended it to look like, "random street crime".

A bit too morbid to speculate on for my taste, but I hope this helps to explain.

Yes, it is a tragedy. On The investigation side does anyone have any actual details of how this played out?

For instance, was Bob Lee possibly at a friends apartment party or a late dinner and drinks and then he’s about to get into his car near that park on the 300 block of Main Street and then thought “oh I need to get some cash for tomorrow”, so he just cut across the park to the Charles Schwab. Someone spotted him and then when he came back towards his car they ended his journey for the paper his wallet?

I have not read any details, but the location where it happened that’s a possibility. When i heard about it at first i thought maybe it had something to do with MobileCoin… maybe someone lost a lot of money or was afraid to lose market share. I haven’t read anything, but i would love to know more details.

Also where in the body was he stabbed?

edit: some more specific details in this article https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/crime/cash...

What evidence indicates that it was a hit?

> I have been told from very well placed sources in the US Intelligence community this is probably a hit.

I generally agree with the rest of your post that SF has become a crime-ridden hellhole, but how do they know so quickly? Are they omniscient? Did they have Bob under a scope (if so, why did they not interfere)?

If they really had Bob under a scope for some active intel interaction and some well placed source in the US intel community started talking about this outside (no matter to how close a friend), that someone is going to lose his access, his tongue or his head very quickly. And knows it.

all powerful people are potential targets of assassination. if someone said “shinzo abe was assasinated”, would you respond “theres no way that could happen because no one could have confirmed that unless an intel insider was talking about it, and then that insider would lose their access really quick!!” i mean my god

There is a massive gulf in the power between a head of state and that of a tech company executive.

I wonder if this is crypto related? There seems to be an coordinated/ongoing government response to taking down crypto in the past several months. Maybe that's why they'd keep digs on him?

There's a bit of a difference between 'former head of state shot down in broad daylight' and 'company exec stabbed at 2:35 a.m. in the center of a major city'

> I have been told from very well placed sources in the US Intelligence community this is probably a hit.

As soon as I saw this thread I also thought that this could be a possibility

> Fuck San Francisco.

Glad you are gone.