Stabbing of Cash App Creator Raises Alarm, and Claims of a Lawless San Francisco
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
Note it'd basically be their job to lower that number, so no wonder they're incentivized to feign it's not an issue. And typical lawyer speak is "That didn't happen, and if it did we didnt cause it, and if it did happen and we caused it then it's not our fault" it prototypical legalese (not they're a lawyer too)
Anecdata here, but after reporting 2 crimes in SF and hearing the police do nothing about it, I stopped reporting. I suspect their data is entirely broken by underreporting. FWIW I've also anecdotally heard, and observed similar in Austin which, for example, their roads feel more like being in a MadMax movie than orderly transportation.
When someone makes spiteful accusations based on thin air it usually is a based on a reflection of themselves; AKA confession through projection.
Who usually weaponizes tragedies about crime waves?
Who usually misuses or misreport the city's crime data?
Who usually complains on social media for political gain?
That's not projection, that's being pissed off at political misinformation. It's a line straight out of Trump speeches, "carnage in our cities" and all that, it isn't reality based and it helps no one.
Obviously, even the worst societies have considered "death for every offense" a bit too tough.
The problem is complex and involves multiple things - any "simple" solution likely has glaring issues.
And a glib answer to some of these could be "NYC cracked down on crime so criminals moved elsewhere, perhaps to San Francisco".
What actually happened is that crime declined everywhere starting around 1994. Same reasons Dolores Park is now routinely filled with yuppies instead of gang violence.
'Tough on crime' is a short-sighted solution.
I've seen a paper that suggests increasing a police force by X (I forget the number) reduces murder by 1 per year. That's probably the best thing I've seen supporting your views and it's pretty weak and impractical. I'd say this is probably correlation rather than causation.
But the idea that increased prosecution prevents crime is absolute horse shit. Prosecution is too late to intervene. The crime has already occurred. When a crime rate increases, new people committing new crimes will grow faster than the system can punish people for old ones. The people committing property crime in SF (note that that's the actual issue, violent crime is low despite this freak incident) are not thinking rationally about the consequences or lack thereof either.
Wrong. A small number of people commit most crimes. They have plenty of crimes to commit in the future if able.
> The people committing property crime in SF (note that that's the actual issue, violent crime is low despite this freak incident) are not thinking rationally about the consequences or lack thereof either.
Wrong at multiple levels. Violent crime rates are high for the demographics, among other things.
Property crime like smash and grabs, home invasions, catalytic converter thefts are conducted by professional crime rings with sophisticated operations.
You're thinking of recidivism completely wrongly.
> Violent crime rates are high for the demographics, among other things.
This is false. The information is available to you.
A teacher was beaten deaf by one of their students at a middle school and was stopped from reporting the assault to the police: https://missionlocal.org/2022/04/total-meltdown-at-everett-m...
The local crime statistics are not reliable. Even homicides, which tend to be hard to underreport, should be used very carefully since 600+ people die every year from "drug overdose" which is not categorized as a homicide but very well should be.
Even things like hospitals reporting stabbings can be manipulated, intentionally or otherwise; if "intentional stabbing" requires reporting and paperwork that "accidentally fell on a knife" both the healthcare providers and the victim may prefer the second - think gang violence where neither side wants the cops involved.
An abrupt 'rise in homicide' caused by changing the definition will just undermine the credibility of the numbers.
Changing definitions can make the new data seem unreliable, but bad definitions make the data actually unreliable. Those are different kinds of problems.
I don’t have a simple answer. I’m mostly surprised that the teacher’s union tacitly supports this sort of outcome.
All of these arguments over crime rates and policing remind me a lot of The Wire, especially Season 3. For those who haven't watched it, it deep dives into the relationship between crime on the street and the high-level political maneuvering to which those crimes are merely an inconvenience, not a problem that needs fixing. Lots of pressure from folks at the top of city government to reduce numbers, rather than fixing the issues. And the frustration at the bottom of that pile, when everyday police officers realize they can't fix structural problems.
Makes me wonder what happened to make US cities so much better in the 2010s. Is it just a prosperity thing related to tech wealth? Because it feels like these exact issues were a huge problem in the 90s, and they somehow got better for a decade and a half before covid brought them back worse than ever.
These were issues in the 90s, and then Giuliani in NY and Riordan in LA spearheaded large cities adding more police officers, a trend which continued until the present day.
https://www.usasupreme.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/cahs-a...
rotten.
It may just be anecdata but from what I remember you had much more "pockets" of bad areas, often which would be pushed just outside the city limits into a neighboring city.
But even accounting for that total statewide numbers seemed lower.
This is what I see too, and it seems glaringly obvious. Progressives want to reduce the incarceration rate, and any DA (or anyone in government really) will want to reduce the crime rate. By not prosecuting criminals, and facilitating the underreporting of crime, they get both. It makes absolutely no sense to me for a DA to unilaterally decide to prosecute less without any kind of corresponding change to how the police operate. If criminals know they won't be punished, and the issues that are causing them to commit crimes haven't been fixed, they will commit more crimes.
I'm sorry but having lived in both the Bay and Austin/Dallas I disagree. A guy tried to ram me with his vehicle going north on 101 near Palo Alto of all places, Texas has been tame in comparison.
And do people who do those things "deserve what they get"? That's a serious question, because there a disturbing amount of people, many in SF itself, who have espoused this very view.
Do they deserve this? No. But is it frustrating to see them convince everyone that this is a policing issue and not an economic one? Yes
This was so sad to read. I bet the driver thought Lee was a dangerous or disturbed person, and he ran away.
I see a lot of other comments saying that our fear just comes from the media, but I don't think that's the case. I say that as a San Franciscan for two years now. I think it comes from personal experience. These are mine, in the last two years:
1. I witnessed the end of an extremely violent street mugging. The victim was left sobbing in a pool of blood from a head wound.
2. I was shoved by a disturbed person while I was recovering from knee surgery and learning to walk outside again with a knee brace. I was not hurt, thankfully, but easily could have been.
3. My building was broken into by a street person. He defecated in the hallway. Police had to convince him to leave. He was not charged. (Also, I drew the short straw for the cleanup. Not fun!)
4. I've also seen many disturbed individuals in states of extreme distress. Some of these people have left lasting images in my mind. A lady in a wheelchair who sleeps outside, screaming at the top of her lungs at some attacker. An extremely young female wandering dazed, out her mind, who apparently hadn’t noticed the feces that collected in her pant leg. Lots of unconscious people (likely due to fentanyl) in what should be super painful positions. There’s so much pain, just, on the streets outside my apartment...
5. There are also large encampments nearby with what appear to be dozens of possibly stolen bicycles. Once, a person in this encampment shouted at me angrily. (I ran away.) Just a couple blocks away, a tent caught fire, and it spread to the nearby apartment. No one was hurt, thankfully.
When you encounter these situations on a regular basis (and when your friends report similar personal experiences--again, not news media!), your reaction to someone strange approaching you is to run away. You become conditioned to anticipate negative interactions, or violence, and as an act of self-preservation, you avoid/run.
I've often wondered what would happen to me if I had a heart attack, on the streets nearby. Would someone think I've just had a nap from the drugs I’ve just used?
Don't get me wrong, these are just the bad parts of living in the city; and there's SO MUCH good. Outdoor and indoor activities, club sports, transit and walkability, shops and restaurants, and I've made so many friends. For me, the good very much outweighs the bad. I just wish there was less bad. :)
In the meantime, my life in one of the "conservative" states has never been better and my daughters couldn't be happier.
Around 4 members of that family have been on the SF Board of Supervisors as well and they have a LOT of property holdings around Union Square.
They're also good family friends with Newsom (he appointed the assaulted SFFD's aunt to be a Supervisor when he was elected mayor and had to vacate his Supervisor seat) and Willie Brown (London Breed and Kamala Harris's mentor. Also a former mayor of SF responsible for the redevelopment of Hayes Valley, Mission Bay, and Van Ness. They have beef with Harris though because she endorses Breed).
They own one of the major regional law firms here (Alioto Law), were in the SF Giant's board, and also own a bunch of the property around Fisherman's Wharf (the now shuttered Italian restaurant Alioto's) and one of the major Car repair companies here (Alioto's Garage).
Edit: wasn't Joe Alioto that's in the ICU, but a family friend of theirs, but the Alioto family has taken up the cause now (bit of political intrigue too btw because of local elections)
> The report said at least 50 gig drivers for companies like Uber, Lyft and DoorDash had been killed while on the job in the United States since 2017.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/06/business/uber-lyft-driver...
Nobody cares about gig workers getting killed, for example, it's just noise, because it doesn't affect those who are not gig workers.
America is not safe at all compared to most other developed countries. The rich usually just segregate themselves out of the crime.
The officer didn't do anything and shrugged when the Walgreens employees were asking for his help.
edit: by the way, this was around afternoon/lunch time in broad daylight.
That, and some DAs have built their career on lowering felonies to misdemeanors and directing people to "alternative" or "restorative" justice, meaning sending them to community service rather than prison.
What's the point of chasing a robber who probably took less than $1k and will be released without charges anyway?
Edit - especially when they can’t defend themselves. I don’t like proliferation of guns. But condoning this is specifically making a case for concealed carry, stand your ground laws and increased risk of life.
What is the point of the government continuing to employ police, when they refuse to do their jobs as a protest against government decisions on justice policy?
Realistically, none. If the DAS won't prosecute and the state won't imprison, then there's no point other than optics. Of course, sensible people want to keep existing police in the hopes the DAs and states will change their policies. But if there's no hope of that, then yes, it would make financial sense to eliminate police and let the cities descend further into anarchy. At least then, some revolutionary instinct may awaken in the general populace and they can institute new, competent governance, as is their right.
The public demands that police only focus on the worst offenders, everyone demands that use of force is eliminated, and the DA announced intent not to press charges for victimless crimes like property theft.
How would it be appropriate for police to take action in that scenario? If that chase ends in a tackle and the thief is harmed, and the government would have just let the dude go, how is that in any way consistent with the government’s interest?
Responding to clear direction from political leadership and the public is not “protest”, if anything failing to do so would be.
The specific claim made upthread was that this was justified by DAs pursuing alternative/restorative justice. Not arresting because they don’t like DAs doing that instead of seeking prison is very much not doing their job.
Similarly, not arresting because they don’t like DAs charging misdemeanors rather than felonies.
Not arresting in specific circumstances where DA has indicated no action of any kind will be taken, if done consistently, is reasonable; but even here, police are very inconsistent, and will frequently arrest nonviolent protestors (and engage in viewpoint discrimination as to which protestors get this treatment) – for possibly legitimate offenses, sure – in circumstances that they know will not be prosecuted, while using the lack of prosecution as an excuse not to arrest for equally legitimate offensea of other kinds. This is, itself, a form of political lobbying while on th4 clock as civil servants.
https://www.nyc.gov/site/nypd/news/p00055/career-violent-cri...
The worst of the worst list is especially interesting, though the numbers for at least three arrests are more indicative.
Whatever it is we're doing, it's not working. The people who lose in this case are the victims.
As for differential treatment, it's not too hard to see arrests of protesters who start becoming aggressive with officers as a means of nipping something worse in the bud.
Compare that with the upthread example where a guy was running after having stolen something. The threat of violence was over, there wasn't a risk of escalation unless the officer ran after him.
I think the real challenge you’re running into is that the line between enforcement-worthy and not enforcement-worthy crime is in the eye of the beholder. But the DA saying _x_ is no longer a felony would seemingly be a clear signal about how police should be prioritizing their work.
The DA is a political actor too and could be pressuring cops to funnel people to their restorative Justice programs if they wanted to.
To be clear, I'm not saying I'm thrilled about prosecuting people for many of the crimes for which the contraband would constitute, but the advantages of arresting the perp even if they'll immediately be released is obvious.
The challenge is that holding people accountable for misdemeanor crime, using stops as pretexts for deeper investigation, and aggressive enforcement of nuisance laws all contribute to disproportionately bad outcomes for underprivileged people. That consequence is more directly obvious than the consequences of not going effective police work, which is why our society collectively made the choices it did over the last few years.
Sorry your comment is not helpful at all.
Letting one dramatic headline make you so emotional that you ignore larger trends in data is such a choice. It's not required.
And as far as culture wars go, when it comes to something like gay marriage I get it, there's a policy winner and loser there.
But what's the point of pretending cities are more dangerous than they are? The people there know the true level of safety, and how it differs from the performative outrage discourse.
Anecdote, I spent some time wandering around east palo alto (at the time, was the murder capital). It didn't feel particularly bad, but the data said otherwise.
You can't trust random people's perception of safety. You can't trust the data either.
In San Francisco, that bargain is unraveling.
The Bay Area has always been particularly badly segregated. Palo Alto is wealthy and posh, East Palo Alto is a dump. San Jose boasts huge tech companies while East San Jose is full of gang fighting. I grew up in one of these violent areas of the Bay (starts with East but that's all I'll mention publicly) and the gap in resources is huge. Bad schools, poor libraries and community spaces, poorly maintained parks, unsafe neighborhoods, no pedestrian affordances, high speed badly maintained roads, the list is endless.
The downtown part of SF isn't really considered a posh area by most of the old money interests in SF, who live in the Northwestern parts of the City. The old political families of SF all live there in huge, beautiful houses and the neighborhoods are very different than the parts of FiDi and SOMA that new money tends to hang around.
The Wire is a great show that goes into some of the politics and challenges of America's containment style of policing.
Human brains are also wired to pay more attention to anecdotal data than statistics.
> 2019, the city proposed opening a homeless shelter in the area, and residents protested, arguing that the facility — which eventually did open — would be detrimental to public safety.
> Opposition to the shelter gathered momentum after a woman trying to enter her condo building was attacked that summer by a man suffering from mental illness, one of many seemingly random assaults that occurred in succession as the pandemic emptied public spaces.
> But a bodega owner in the area said that crime seemed to be rising, and that at night, the neighborhood became a backdrop for drug use and occasional sideshows.
> San Francisco recorded 56 homicides in 2017 before some violent crimes dipped during the pandemic; in 2021 and 2022, the homicide count was back up to 56, according to data from the city’s Police Department.
It’s not exactly Portland or Chicago, but I think it is reasonable for people in SF to say the status quo is unacceptable.
Progressives tend to systematically underrate crime as a problem because it “magically” went down for so long after the 90s. Incidents like this remind people that crime is real, and not just imagined by the Fox News, and that the victims are real, too.
Wat? Who are you imagining is the winner and who is the loser? The guy that wanted to get married, and his partner who didn't?