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> Evan Snow, a thirtysomething “user experience design professional”..., who had moved to the neighbourhood about six months earlier (and who has since departed
by navait 11y ago
> Evan Snow, a thirtysomething “user experience design professional”..., who had moved to the neighbourhood about six months earlier (and who has since departed for a more suburban environment)
> Snow never seemed to recognise that his out-of-control dog was the aggressor: “So Luna was, I think, looking to move around the benches or behind me to run up happily to get a chip from Mr Nieto. Mr Nieto became further – what’s the right word? – distressed, moving very quickly and rapidly left to right, trying to keep his chips away from Luna. He ran down to these benches and jumped up on the benches, my dog following. She was at that point vocalising, barking, or kind of howling.”
>– in his deposition for the case, under oath, his exact words were that he was distracted by a female “jogger’s butt”. “I can imagine that somebody would – could assume the dog was being aggressive at that point,” Snow said. The dog did not come when he called, but kept barking. Nieto, Snow says, then pulled back his jacket and took his Taser out, briefly pointing at the distant dog-owner before he pointed it at the dog baying at his feet. The two men yelled at each other, and Snow apparently used a racial slur, but would not later give the precise word. As he left the park, he texted a friend about the incident. His text, according to his testimony, said, “in another state like Florida, I would have been justified in shooting Mr Nieto that night”
Is this guy real? This is the sort of person I'd expect to see on Silicon Valley not in the real world, he fits the techbro stereotype exactly. After each sentence I read, I thought this guy couldn't get even more stereotypical, but he managed to lower the bar further.
- tptacek 11y agoThis is a person Rebecca Solnit chose to single out, carefully juxtaposing reports of his (incredibly obnoxious) behavior against Nieto's shooting, to which, even by Solnit's account (read carefully), he was not a party. I don't want to get drinks with this character in Solnit's story, either. But I'm not sure we should applaud the tactic of summoning up and focusing outrage on people like this.
- robterrell 11y agoHer implication is that this guy's dog is why the taser was visible, and the taser was reported as a handgun, and the police responded to that. I'd say he's a party -- his self-reported distraction started the whole series of events.
- tptacek 11y agoHe didn't call the police, he didn't report a gun. He was an asshole. We are all assholes, many times per week.
- barrkel 11y agoApplying the same label to different people doesn't make them equal or equivalent. He certainly wasn't a murderer, not even close. But he was an unusually big asshole. I, for one, do not express any serious wish to shoot people very often. I certainly wouldn't express it in writing over any electronic medium in today's world, but that's a different discussion.
- Ygg2 11y agoI'd be inclined the believe that, if the title wasn't - Death by gentrification. I mean, you could write the title - Death by Snu Snu and you could paint his girlfriend as some shady character.
- wambotron 11y agoOther people said he seemed agitated and nervous when their dogs were walking about by him. I imagine if a dog just charged at you and was barking/howling while its owner was staring at someone's ass, you'd be on edge for a bit as well.
- tptacek 11y agoNo shit! I agree. I read the first half of the first graf of the story angry at Solnit, for singling out this guy and scare-quoting his occupation. Then I got to the bit about the dog jumping up on Nieto and the simpering excuse-making this guy made about that and I instantly got angry at the guy instead. What an asshole! That lasted a couple minutes. But "poorly managed, barking dog jumps up on someone" happens millions of times a day, and those dogs owners are not complicit in murders. As reported elsewhere, Solnit's story leaves out Nieto's mental illness, which is apparently severe: he appears to have been schizophrenic. We don't know what Nieto's reaction was to the dog. He could have terrified, or he could have been outraged. A previous version of this comment suggested that Nieto had tased someone else at the park; he had not. I misread something; the taser incident I read about was unrelated to the park.
- mikelward 11y agoIf true, why had his taser license not been revoked?
- tptacek 11y agoIs there a such thing as a taser license? I don't think people should be allowed to arbitrarily carry tasers around, either, by the way. Certainly I don't think it's OK for bar bounces to have them. Dozens of people die every year when the police tase them. Tasers are not safe.
- JoeAltmaier 11y agoGonna need a citation? Tasers certainly sound safer: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3800082 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3800082
- williamcotton 11y agoI can tell you first hand that the neighborhood has been overrun by men like Evan Snow. Considering you live in Chicago and that Rebecca and I actually live in Bernal Heights I think we have a much better perspective on the situation. Where I come from you don't call the cops because you think you saw "a Mexican crazy man waving a gun around". If you see something, you leave, and you don't say anything to anyone. If you don't be a snitch then people don't get shot. If you move from fucking Iowa and you think San Francisco is like adult Disneyland and you parade around town with your white ear buds and you're totally oblivious to reality, you might think that the SFPD is like the security guards at the mall and think you need to call them when you see some "Mexican kids hanging on the street in a pack". The cops have fucking handguns and are very familiar with using them throughout years of gang violence in the Mission and Bernal. People who live in these neighborhoods don't look forward to having the police roll up searching for a Mexican with a handgun. Bullets fly in all directions. Completely innocent people get gunned down. Someone acting scary and just having a bad day but not hurting anyone gets gunned down. This shit happens all the time. I've been watching people get shot for no god damned reason for years and years and years. STOP SNITCHIN'
- wbl 11y agoNo, people do get shot. 12 year old boys get shot by gangsters in broad daylight, and no one says who did it. People get smashed on the head with poles by roving teenagers. That the cops are just another gang sometimes doesn't mean they aren't necessary, or that Stop Snitchin' is anything but aiding and abetting murder.
- tptacek 11y agoTell me more about how hardcore San Francisco is compared to the sleepy pastoral boulevards of Chicago. Then, reread Solnit's story. The "snitch" we're talking about didn't call Nieto in. Someone else did.
- jon-wood 11y agoThis just feels like another damning indictment of US policing. "Don't call the cops, because innocent people will end up getting shot." In most civilised countries you can call the police without first wondering if its worth the risk of bystanders ending up dead.
- nkrisc 11y agoExcept this incident precipitated the other events by likely distressing Alex Nieto and causing him to appear agitated.
- tptacek 11y agoI do not like being manipulated by journalists abusing their positions to push their preferred narrative. Solnit would like us to believe Snow was complicit in Nieto's killing, because it supports her narrative. Surely Solnit was made aware, before this article was published, of critically important details, like Nieto's diagnosed and medicated psychosis (he was off his meds), or his record of having violently confronted people in that same park. She chose to leave those details out of her story, entirely, because it would have muddied the point she hoped to make. Meanwhile, Solnit is perfectly happy to write the story in such a way that a casual reader would have believe Snow was at fault. Some readers on this thread have apparently come away with the impression that it was him who called 911! Psychosis: not important for us to know about. Later unrelated racist text message between friends: very important for us to know about. You don't feel manipulated?
- pm24601 11y agono... Solint is using Snow as a narrative for representing the attitudes the gentrification brought into Alex's neighborhood. The attitudes that lead to Alex's death. SoInit is not presenting all the facts because that is not a journalist's job. She has only a limited amount of space (yes even on the web) to work with. But why are you talking about the messenger rather than the message?
- darpa_escapee 11y agoBecause it hits too close to home.
- tptacek 11y agoIt hits 2,257 miles away from my home in Chicago.
- tryitnow 11y agoNope. Sorry, Evan Snow's recklessness in not getting his dog under control resulted in a innocent person getting shot, and cops whose careers are probably ruined. Snow deserves a big chunk of blame here. It's simple folks: if you're not highly confident that your dog will behave itself For those of you who still harbor sympathy for Snow, do a Google search for people who have been mauled by out of control dogs. Now Snow's dog didn't end up biting, but that's beside the point. His dog clearly caused a major disturbance because he didn't control it. Snow's recklness is the root cause of this profound tragedy.
- whatok 11y agoI'm pretty sure that pointing a device that appeared to be a gun at a group of cops after ignoring their requests for him to put his hands up had a bit more of an impact than the dog in this case.
- lostlogin 11y agoThat he pointed the tazer is very much disputed.
- whatok 11y agoOk, I'll play along. Unless you believe the cops unholstered his taser and placed it on the ground, chances are it was in his hands. Time taken to raise object that appears to be a gun and shoot someone <= time to unholster and raise weapon to shoot someone. Police need to be proactive in situations like this because being reactive could lead to getting shot.
- lostlogin 11y agoThe article suggests his hands were in his pockets when shot and that police fired the tazer after he was dead. The current rate of police killings indicates something needs to change. Being proactive doesn't mean killing someone each time you feel threatened. This case shows how that can play out. A little more "reactive" is exactly what was needed.
- massemphasis 11y agoWow, you techbros are everywhere. Way to watch out for your bro. /s
- kazinator 11y ago> Is this guy real? ... fits the techbro stereotype exactly. I have the same reaction. Complete, with an aggressive dog that, oh, vocalizes.
- nkrisc 11y agoOn a side note: people like this should not be allowed to own dogs. He clearly has no control over it.
- deong 11y agoWithout knowing anything more than what was written in the article, I think the clear intent is that he's supposed to fit the techbro stereotype exactly. I think this article crosses the line into propaganda to ensure that one way or another, that's what the reader will take away. That's not to say the underlying story they want to tell is necessarily wrong. I'd agree with the basic thesis that gentrified neighborhoods bring in people who cause no ends of problems for the people who have lived there forever, with in some cases, tragic consequences. And the guy may genuinely be exactly the preppy little asshole they're telling me he is. But my general political sensitivities are already as "bleeding-heart-lefty" as you can imagine, and if you cherry pick bits of my life -- "chief software engineer, according to LinkedIn", "likes golf", etc., you can paint pretty much any picture you like.
- massemphasis 11y agoSan Francisco used to be an awesome place, then all those people moved in from some white-only places and it's pretty much gone down hill. It used to be an awesome, diverse place with strong and creative people... now look at it. It's so sterile and void of originality it is sickening in comparison to what it used to be. Alot of those people imitate the culture and creativity from San Francisco's once diverse population until it's just become another vapid rendition of a once vibrant city. Look at clowns like "Lil Dicky" for example that exemplify the notoriety of the idiocy that is confused for San Francisco culture. The worst are the police from the MidWest and other racist places where they openly shoot minorities (Asians, Blacks, Hispanics, Latinos, etc...) then they are assigned to places like San Francisco, Seattle, Silicon Valley, Portland, etc... to gentrify the area. They have been working a lot with the white supremacist "techbros' that plague San Francisco, such that when altercations occur, the police will abuse the minority every time. They even laugh about it too. It's sickening.
- rsync 11y ago"San Francisco used to be an awesome place, then all those people moved in from some white-only places and it's pretty much gone down hill. It used to be an awesome, diverse place with strong and creative people... now look at it. It's so sterile and void of originality it is sickening in comparison to what it used to be." I think you would do well (and perhaps be surprised/enlightened) to read about the population and racial makeup of the mission district (as an example) prior to the immediate post-WWII era. Hint: there were no tacquerias. Things change. Places evolve.
- massemphasis 11y agoAre you confused, since you are confusing "evolution" with gentrification. San Francisco de-evolved. To undo your over simplification, in terms of evolution San Francisco is over specialized in an evolutionary sense. Can you parse that and understand what that means?