Ex-S.F. fire commissioner with fractured skull after metal pipe attack

Having reported crime in SF after I was burgled via forced entry I can say first hand that it is arduous and the only reason I went through with the process is for insurance reasons. I do not trust those statistics at all. People who value their time more than the goods they were deprived of may decide that it simply isn't worth reporting. Every officer I talked to made sure to tell me that they weren't going to do anything about it, that there was no hope of getting my stuff back, and that I should avoid wasting everyone's time. If I didn't have a rather expensive laptop stolen I wouldn't have bothered. I was required to wait for police to arrive and they took over 8 hours arriving at 5am and all they did was tell me in person they were not going to do anything and they were clearly upset that I actually went through with the report and made them visit.

One of the offices that a friend worked at had a homeless person enter the lobby and start harassing people. They called the police who then reprimanded the reception and told them that the homeless person has their rights and does not have to leave, they informed the homeless person that he was under no obligation to leave which made it even more difficult for the office staff to remove him which they were unable to do. Women had to be escorted in and out of the office for the rest of the day while a random homeless person hurled abuse at them. It was all extremely unpleasant.

Kate Steinle was a friend of a friend and she was randomly shot and killed by a homeless person on Pier 14 not far from where I was living in SF. The accused was acquitted due to lack of evidence. A senseless killing of a kind lady for which there will be no justice.

I did not have much respect for SF police but after living there for some time I have even less respect for them now. This mess is part of their refusal to do their job, maybe that's due to a political diktat but it has been in place for so long now it seems that the current crop of police officers are totally ok with this status quo. I guess everyone who wasn't has already left the force.

California also does not honor nor grant concealed carry permits to non-residents, which is one reason I'll never visit again.

This idea that social services (community centers, at-risk youth outreach programs, etc) can do the work instead of police is tempting, but it's very unlikely.

Yes, that doesn't mean they are unnecessary. (Quite the opposite, as police also does too much. And similarly the prison system is also so laughably underfunded compared to its size that it almost makes things worse.)

But. And that's the real issue that many people just don't want to see, it's still chronically underfunded (and mismanaged, but getting better management is not going to be cheap).

I think the idea is that those are expensive but ineffectual feel good measures that constitute kicking the can.

Of those billions, have they been spent wisely? Spending feel-good dollars that are politically appealing and spending those same billions on bitter medicine (read: shelters that nobody wants to build, making more public toilets, etc.) that will not get you reelected are two very different things. Anyone can piss away a few billion and give themselves a gold star and a press conference for doing it.

The problems have done nothing but grow. Yes, there have been services. No, there haven't been solutions. That is kicking the can down the road, despite how well-meaing people may be.

My point is simply that talk is cheap – and this problem exists because that's all anyone does about it.

I think kicking of the head should be treated as attempted murder. It’s insane that people are even slightly ok with that. Same with throwing a brick.