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I Was Robbed in San Francisco While the Cameras Rolled

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Re: I Was Robbed in San Francisco While the Cameras Rolled

#151

Post by stephencoyner »

I’ve lived next to golden gate park and the presidio for close to 5 years and they have never been anything but clean, beautiful and well maintained.

I have never seen any crime in my neighborhood first hand. I often walk at night to enjoy some fresh air and have never felt unsafe.

The city really changes greatly depending on where you are. So when I see the comments that blanket everything together as a giant failure it seems a bit unfair.

This is in contrast to other cities like Seattle where many parks are a mess and the streets haven’t been paved since 1925.

SF has many large problems, but it also still has immense natural beauty and glorious areas. All is not lost

Re: I Was Robbed in San Francisco While the Cameras Rolled

#152

Post by dragonwriter »

pmoriarty wrote: post #115
84fryb75 wrote: post #9

In early 2020, before lockdown, I visited San Francisco as a tourist with my wife. We took a wrong turn at a book store and wound up on a street covered in feces. The next street was fine. Then on the next, we watched a homeless woman shoot up on the street. Then a supercar pulled into a garage. I'm not the best traveled, I'll admit, so I can't compare SF to foreign cities. I'm a simple hillbilly from the Southeast,…

"The homeless are way more aggressive than they are in Chicago or Texan cities. The feces. The crime." So where do homeless people go to the bathroom in Chicago and Texas? In SF most businesses won't let homeless people (ie. obviously poor people and/or people with severe mental issues) use their bathrooms, and even if they did, most of the city closes down at night, so there's nowhere to go. SF has some public bathr…

> So where do homeless people go to the bathroom in Chicago and Texas?

San Francisco has, even by California standards, an unusual lack of an aggressive policy of pushing the homeless out of places where they are visible to economic elites. So, if you are reasonably well-off person, you are more likely to see all of the things that go along with homelessness in SF than elsewhere. (SF also devotes unusual resources to dealing with the impacts of homelessness, but the net result and the frustration it causes for economic elites that are usually the power that directs local politics shows why most cities prefer to spend resources hiding homelessness rather than dealing with it.)

Re: I Was Robbed in San Francisco While the Cameras Rolled

#153

Post by midhhhthrow »

bushbaba wrote: post #95
Cookingboy wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh he absolutely knows it's bad policy, however he also knows it wins votes from people in San Francisco. The problem is a large numbers of voters in SF don't realize it's bad policy, and maybe a bigger problem would be why are district attorneys elected positions in the first place?

I think there’s a lot of Californians voting in bad policy to curtail gentrification. I’ve seen the logic used by many in SF.

I had to think about that for a second. It kinda makes sense and works. If you make SF an awful enough place, companies might finally start to consider leaving.

Re: I Was Robbed in San Francisco While the Cameras Rolled

#154

Post by girvo »

narrator wrote: post #113
dheera wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always thought that an honestly useful product would be some kind of theft deterrent device that you either attach to your car, or attach to your camera equipment, and it detects the car window getting smashed or the tripod getting moved out of range of a beacon in the owner's pocket. If triggered it should spray a combination of fart spray, glitter, pepper spray, honey, flour, feathers, ink, in all directions.…

Traps to defend property are very illegal.

Any that would cause bodily harm, or be argued to cause it, definitely.

The fart spray and glitter bomb, would be interesting to see how it would be interpreted. I wouldn’t want to be the test case for it!

Re: I Was Robbed in San Francisco While the Cameras Rolled

#156

Post by insert_coin »

yupper32 wrote: post #53
84fryb75 wrote: post #9

In early 2020, before lockdown, I visited San Francisco as a tourist with my wife. We took a wrong turn at a book store and wound up on a street covered in feces. The next street was fine. Then on the next, we watched a homeless woman shoot up on the street. Then a supercar pulled into a garage. I'm not the best traveled, I'll admit, so I can't compare SF to foreign cities. I'm a simple hillbilly from the Southeast,…

> This was my third time in SF. > Also, I've always refused to move to Silicon Valley > The author is in denial. > it is a really expensive shithole I'm always amazed by people who have visited a place a few times as a tourist and think "I'm qualified to shit on people who choose to live here". What makes you think you have any say in the situation? SF has massive neighborhood diversity as far as living situations go…

> SF has massive neighborhood diversity as far as living situations go. Yeah, the downtown and tourist areas suck.

The fact that you needed to say that says a lot. While describing most cities of the world, most third world country cities of the world, you would never even mention the word feces, much less defend its presence on the streets.

Re: I Was Robbed in San Francisco While the Cameras Rolled

#157

Post by kemiller »

cameldrv wrote: post #132
MrFlynn wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Since then crime in SF has absolutely exploded. This is sort of misleading. Burglaries, motor vehicle thefts, and homicides went up, but all other crimes went down. Specifically in the case of homicides, there were 7 more compared to 2019. > I have never seen it this bad. Crime is still at an all time low in SF. The rate of crimes has roughly remained static for the better part of two decades. The increased number…

Murders don't just disappear, they are almost universally reported and investigated. Burglaries and car thefts need a police report to make an insurance claim. For crimes like assault though, if the police convince the victim that reporting it is pointless, it doesn't show up in the stats. Anecdotally, this is what I have heard is happening.

You don’t suppose this is passive resistance by the police to all the scrutiny they’ve been receiving? Start telling people that the system is all backed up and their hands are tied?

Re: I Was Robbed in San Francisco While the Cameras Rolled

#158

Post by onion2k »

jypepin wrote: post #27

There are a lot of homeless and SF is indeed in shit hole in a lot of areas, but I don't understand people who say they wouldn't visit because it's not safe or whatever. Looking at crime rate rankings [0], SF is pretty low compared to other US cities both in terms or violant crimes and property crimes. What am I missing? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b...

The problem with looking at crime rate statistics is that they only tell you about reported crime levels. If everyone knows that a petty theft, or a mugging, or a minor assault isn't going to be investigated or prosecuted then people stop bothering to report it.

This is referred to as the "dark figure of crime" by sociologists (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_figure_of_crime) which sounds a bit like a description of Batman.

Re: I Was Robbed in San Francisco While the Cameras Rolled

#159

Post by plank_time »

Gimpei wrote: post #88
olivermarks wrote: post #30

SF District Attorney Chesa Boudin ran for office in November 2019 focusing his campaign on ending mass incarceration with restorative justice models, rather than punitive incarceral methods. Since then crime in SF has absolutely exploded, fuelled by proposition 47 which reduced stealing less than $900 day to a misdemeanor. Add in a massive opioid crisis and the result is a rapidly growing crisis of shoplifting, petty…

Crime has exploded across the US since the start of COVID, not just SF. So I'm not convinced Chesa is to blame. Which isn't too say I'm a big fan of his either. Homelessness is indeed a problem, but according to the biannual survey, most of the unhoused are from the bay area. This suggested the crisis is the result of skyrocketing rents and the steady disappearance of SROs. Yet another thing we can thank Nimbys for.…

Walgreens has closed over 17 stores due to increased shoplifting. It is 400% higher than the national average in SF. It’s higher in SF because the repercussions are much lower because SFPD doesn’t even bother looking. Look at the reaction to the theft of the camera. The police said the DA need video evidence, eyewitnesses don’t matter anymore, even with a picture of the car. The criminals are free to commit crimes consequence-free.

Re: I Was Robbed in San Francisco While the Cameras Rolled

#160

Post by asdff »

olivermarks wrote: post #143
asdff wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the elephant in the room is the mental health crisis. You don't notice the person walking by you who lives in their car. You notice the person who is shoeless in traffic and screaming. We elected to close our mental health treatment facilities and turn these people out to the street to fend for themselves. Then when they deny offered treatment or shelter we claim they did it through their own volition and all…

There are only 6000 psych beds in all of California right now, but the state has spent 13 billion over the last 3 years on 'homeless'. Far more will be spent this year but the problems are getting worse. https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/audit-california-track-h...

It's baffling how short we are on the services we need in the richest state in the richest nation. LA county alone is anticipated to have over 100,000 homeless in the next few years. That's the population of Burbank. They aren't exactly sure how much over as they couldn't do the annual count this year, but COVID related job loss and expiring benefits should be of no help.
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