I was suspicious of the "homeless killer" narrative because I worked in that neighbhorhood for a long time and there were no homeless people anywhere near there. Also, I've walked past many of the SF drug-addled homeless and none of them seemed physically robust enough to stab anyone other than another drug-addled homeless person. (the non-drug homeless around the Haight and those areas are completely different and extremely scary sometimes)
Arrest made in SF killing of Bob Lee – alleged killer also worked in tech
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Re: Arrest made in SF killing of Bob Lee – alleged killer also worked in tech
#502When I moved to SF in 1996, the murder count that year was 86. Last year it was 56. I haven't been back in a very long time, but I guarantee you it's a far safer city than it was back then. I lived on Market between 6th and 7th and had knives pulled on me, and watched a car get blown up across the street underneath Hollywood Billiards, which is long gone now - according to Google Maps, they're building new apartments…
"Y'all colonized the poorest parts of the city and gave the poorest folks nowhere to go" 1.) I grew up in the rural South, and was literally harassed for most of my career for saying "y'all" and "folks" but glad to see it's trendy to speak that way amongst the exact kind of people who used to assume I was ignorant for speaking that way. 2.) Your statement could just as easily be, on a different day: "Y'all abandoned…
> It's easy for a childless bohemian to have no problem with needles in parks, but for those of us raising future citizens, it's not fun.
> Your entire statement to me seems driven by emotion
> Sorry, but the whole comment reeks of luxury beliefs.
C'mon man. You don't know the person you are responding to and included multiple personal attacks in your response. There's a way to make your argument without making the person you are responding to your own personal hate-object.
Re: Arrest made in SF killing of Bob Lee – alleged killer also worked in tech
#503When I moved to SF in 1996, the murder count that year was 86. Last year it was 56. I haven't been back in a very long time, but I guarantee you it's a far safer city than it was back then. I lived on Market between 6th and 7th and had knives pulled on me, and watched a car get blown up across the street underneath Hollywood Billiards, which is long gone now - according to Google Maps, they're building new apartments…
"Y'all colonized the poorest parts of the city and gave the poorest folks nowhere to go" 1.) I grew up in the rural South, and was literally harassed for most of my career for saying "y'all" and "folks" but glad to see it's trendy to speak that way amongst the exact kind of people who used to assume I was ignorant for speaking that way. 2.) Your statement could just as easily be, on a different day: "Y'all abandoned…
> Your statement could just as easily be, on a different day: "Y'all abandoned the city for the suburbs and deprived the city of a tax base to help the poor."
That's a different situation from this one, so, sure, if that's something that happened and then you're complaining about the place you don't live anymore, sure, that's also a statement that could be made.
> Between "white flight" and "colonizer/gentrifier", you're damned if you do and damned if you don't
Not surprisingly, those aren't the only two options.
> Real, actual victims of violent crime don't think it's cute or have this nostalgia for squalor
I think you're confused if you think the GP's comment "It taught me compassion and empathy and how to avoid getting knifed by a junkie in the alleyway" was nostalgic for the getting knifed part.
Re: Arrest made in SF killing of Bob Lee – alleged killer also worked in tech
#504Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also worth noting that SF contains most of the Bay Area’s high-crime areas, yet the city limits are much smaller than those of most major American cities. So that skews the crime rate upwards. There’s a similar dynamic at play with several other American cities.
If the argument is that SF is high crime because of policy decisions, then the line drawing doesn’t matter
The line drawing was a policy decision, and it makes regional level policymaking near impossible, creating adverse incentives for suburban jurisdictions and constraining the options of local policymakers in SF. It’s the cause of many of the Bay Area’s current social woes.
Re: Arrest made in SF killing of Bob Lee – alleged killer also worked in tech
#505When I moved to SF in 1996, the murder count that year was 86. Last year it was 56. I haven't been back in a very long time, but I guarantee you it's a far safer city than it was back then. I lived on Market between 6th and 7th and had knives pulled on me, and watched a car get blown up across the street underneath Hollywood Billiards, which is long gone now - according to Google Maps, they're building new apartments…
I don't understand this mentality. https://www.numbeo.com/crime/compare_cities.jsp?country1=Uni... there is no reason that SF has to be a lot less safe than Zurich. Zurich is not populated by aliens, people live in both places It's political choices that make it the way it is.
It is political choices, but it's not primarily on a city level, or a year-to-year level. The problems in San Francisco are generations in the making and often national in cause. You might read Loewen's "Sundown Towns" for a good look at a key factor to understanding American cities.
The "mentality" here is one appropriate for the person and the circumstance. As you say, his neighbors weren't aliens, they were people. Compassion and understanding were worthwhile efforts. And they remain so.
Re: Arrest made in SF killing of Bob Lee – alleged killer also worked in tech
#506This news really highlights the confirmation bias that was in full bloom throughout the "discourse" around the initial reports of Lee's murder (e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35448899 ). Everyone is so quick to jump on negative news about the rare violent crime in e.g. SF thanks to feelings about petty property crime that it's obviously impossible to have any kind of fact-based dialogue about policy. Worth…
Maybe because people like you constantly make underhanded comments about how “rare” violent crime is and so the crime problem is now partisan. It’s not rare https://www.neighborhoodscout.com/ca/san-francisco/crime
Crossing into personal attack is not ok and we ban accounts that do it repeatedly, so please don't.
If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it. Note this one: "Edit out swipes."
Re: Arrest made in SF killing of Bob Lee – alleged killer also worked in tech
#507When I moved to SF in 1996, the murder count that year was 86. Last year it was 56. I haven't been back in a very long time, but I guarantee you it's a far safer city than it was back then. I lived on Market between 6th and 7th and had knives pulled on me, and watched a car get blown up across the street underneath Hollywood Billiards, which is long gone now - according to Google Maps, they're building new apartments…
> Y'all colonized the poorest parts of the city and gave the poorest folks nowhere to go, and you still complain when they dare to pop up where you are.
What leads you to conflate poverty with criminal activity, and proceed to victim-blame those who dare complain about criminal activity?
Re: Arrest made in SF killing of Bob Lee – alleged killer also worked in tech
#508Earlier quoted context omitted.
Out of curiosity, how does one avoid getting knifed by a junkie in the alleyway?
I once was walking in downtown with a lady I was dating and a guy who looked homeless and was obviously very high snuck up on me and wrapped his arm around mine and started talking to me. I did not get scared, I just talked to him like he was my best friend. He said, your girlfriend is really pretty, and I said, "Yes, she is is!" and I asked whether he was having a nice day and wasn't the weather great and made small…
I don't want to be contrarian for the sake of it, but the fact that by luck the guy physically stalking you and immobilizing you happened to back down isn't really convincing me of the safety of SF or alleys.
If being street smart means "try to stay calm when possibly about to be stabbed and killed", I think I'll skip that lecture. I'd prefer if street smarts included how not to let a drugged up guy not get behind you and near you. And how to get out of a bear hug by a drugged up guy. Because "hoping he is nice" doesn't sound like a plan to me.
Re: Arrest made in SF killing of Bob Lee – alleged killer also worked in tech
#509When I moved to SF in 1996, the murder count that year was 86. Last year it was 56. I haven't been back in a very long time, but I guarantee you it's a far safer city than it was back then. I lived on Market between 6th and 7th and had knives pulled on me, and watched a car get blown up across the street underneath Hollywood Billiards, which is long gone now - according to Google Maps, they're building new apartments…
I don't understand this mentality. https://www.numbeo.com/crime/compare_cities.jsp?country1=Uni... there is no reason that SF has to be a lot less safe than Zurich. Zurich is not populated by aliens, people live in both places It's political choices that make it the way it is.
I agreed with the parent's sentiments initially. But then I saw your comment before the edit, where you had called this "uneducated loser mentality." I'm sad that you edited it, because you're also right.
>I loved the Tenderloin back then, even though it was terrifying. It was full of weirdos and loonies and junkies and poverty stricken artsy types like me, who had no power or desire in gentrification - we were just poor too. But we embraced where we were and didn't try to change it. The loin changed me far more than my presence changed it - for the better. It taught me compassion and empathy and how to avoid getting knifed by a junkie in the alleyway.
>But we embraced where we were and didn't try to change it.
Poor is fine. It's a hard life, but it's a state of being. Even being artsy and a little crazy; that's great. The rest of it though...? Why romanticize this? It's bad. We shouldn't romanticize bad. Learn your lessons, but let's want something better.
Re: Arrest made in SF killing of Bob Lee – alleged killer also worked in tech
#510When I moved to SF in 1996, the murder count that year was 86. Last year it was 56. I haven't been back in a very long time, but I guarantee you it's a far safer city than it was back then. I lived on Market between 6th and 7th and had knives pulled on me, and watched a car get blown up across the street underneath Hollywood Billiards, which is long gone now - according to Google Maps, they're building new apartments…
I don't understand this mentality. https://www.numbeo.com/crime/compare_cities.jsp?country1=Uni... there is no reason that SF has to be a lot less safe than Zurich. Zurich is not populated by aliens, people live in both places It's political choices that make it the way it is.
For the past hundred years or so, a lot of people moved to SF because it was nothing like Zurich.
It’s not reasonable even for the nouveaux riches of tech to expect to flip a city’s character in a decade.