1. "Dropping at a historic rate" is such a weird thing to brag when it's just falling back to the pre-Covid level.
2. The centrepiece of this article is basically "people's feelings are wrong, the government's numbers are right".
When I hear mass shootings happen in Bernal and near 24th, and my street gets looted several times -- but crime is actually down and I'm safer than ever according to the stats -- something just doesn't add up to me.
I don't think there were more murders in SF, that kind of thing gets picked up and reported - but I don't think that the number of traffic incidents per murder has dropped 97%. Therefore, I also don't think the number of property crimes per murder has dropped, or car jackings, etc. I have no basis to work from, nothing to anchor my personal perceptions of safety.
I mean ffs SF boarded up downtown for the elections in 2020. That's some failed state shit. I've got my plywood all set for 2024.
The number of killings has never been high in my recollection. Dropping by some percent, large or small, doesn't impact my personal perception of safety. But all sorts of other things do.
[1] https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/traffic-citations-san...
I do agree that traffic citations going down is an indicator of less citations rather than better traffic... but while you can avoid reporting on minor crime like speeding to some degree, it's quite a bit more difficult to stop tracking murder, which is what the original article is about.
True, but such patronizing statements are pretty much what mainstream media has consisted of since at least 2016. There is a vast movement across most media outlets to push the narrative that 'the people' cannot be trusted and need oversight and control. It's probably the most significant anti-democratic wave in several generations, and ironically the perpetrators are mostly those who constantly accuse others of anti-democratic tendencies.
Not even El Salvador which is apparently a right-wing dictatorship where no one has rights has anything close to resembling North American rules.
You've mixed up the current level with the rate of decline. The article is pretty clear about it.
I didn't mix up anything. Covid is a very abnormal event, and seeing the numbers go back to pre-Covid quickly after Covid is more or less expected. It's a good thing (if it's true), but not that newsworthy.
It may be expected, but I disagree that it's not newsworthy. If a sharp-rise is newsworthy, then it's also important to inform people of the sharp-drop. Even if it makes sense to expect a sharp-drop after an anomalous sharp-rise, if you only report the sharp-rise then you leave people misinformed about the current situation.
I think it's fine to complain about the framing of the article, but I think the fact itself is newsworthy.
They could both be wrong.