8 ms·

Bay Area car owners leaving trunks open while parked amid wave of car break-ins

36 points by kerneloftruth 5y ago

anovikov 5y ago
Crazy why this is happening in a developed country. Why not just put cameras everywhere, track and remove these people forever? It shouldn't be so hard to do - they aren't some organised crime, just a bunch of homeless drug addicts.
- junon 5y ago
  > Why not just put cameras everywhere, track and remove these people forever? Ballsy question to ask here on HN...
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- hoppyhoppy2 5y ago
  Why should anyone have any freedom or privacy, really? We could have much less crime under a totalitarian system. Also, to where do you propose to "remove" these people forever, and how much would that cost? Is this a proposal for a "final solution"?
  - josephcsible 5y ago
    There's no "freedom" to break into people's cars, and there shouldn't be.
    - lkschubert8 5y ago
      I think the argument isn't that people should be free to do that, but that it may not be worth giving that level of observational ability to the governing body to stop car break ins.
    - kerneloftruth 5y ago
      San Francisco in particular, and California overall, have reduced breaking into cars, and looting from stores to mere misdemeanors. Plus, they have abolished bail, so there's no detainment, and really no consequence. That all adds up to a position where the state says that property crime doesn't matter anymore. From this point, society crumbles. It's actually reasonable in this circumstance to propose and demand a return to law and order. Citizens now know that the police will not protect them, so a rise in vigilantism is understandable, and necessary where politicians have truly abdicated that responsibility. The ill conceived social experiment done by the Left has failed, and everybody sees that now.... even mayor London Breed.
  - Mountain_Skies 5y ago
    History does seem to point towards the public welcoming more totalitarian systems when more free systems fail to address issues such as public safety. Regardless of if that's good for the public in the long run or not doesn't stop it from seeming like a good idea at the time when the "free" system shows no hope of being able to address the situation.
- Ekaros 5y ago
  Or there could even just be civilian clothed police and arrest and prosecute the perpetrators... Should give a hint in reasonable amount of time...
  - rasz 5y ago
    That would be racist.
- klyrs 5y ago
  How do you propose to "remove" them "forever"? Are you suggesting the death penalty for petty theft? Or housing them and feeding them for the rest of their lives without possibility of parole or remediation? The US already has more prisoners per capita than any other country in the world. Is the "throw everybody you don't like in jail" approach actually working?
  - anovikov 5y ago
    Massive, multimillion people gulag style camp system where people are forced to work on infrastructure projects for 10-15 year sentences (till they are too old to be a threat anymore), for yes things like petty theft. And yes this system must be built with an explicit goal to make a profit and have no outside funding. If it makes no profit, simplify security (less fancy cameras, guard shifts etc and more bullets). Eradicate the motivation for behaviour like that - make sure people know that stealing stuff from cars results in a multiple year incarceration with hard work and a bullet for minimal disobeyance (and probably, because we all know nearly none of these people can get fixed, with a goal of destroying their health and physical abilities to the point they really won't be a threat once released).
- MarcelOlsz 5y ago
  They didn't just sprout out of the ground. They are not the cause, they are also a symptom of a broken system.
- gromitss 5y ago
  Cameras everywhere so 99% of the population is constantly surveilled? No thanks.
- Mountain_Skies 5y ago
  Atlanta has one of the highest surveillance cameras per capita rates in the world and people who live in certain neighborhoods there know to leave their car doors unlocked to avoid getting their windows smashed. Having lots of cameras don't do you any good if no one watches or reviews them. Also many of these thieves are already well known to the police and get little more than time-served when they go before a judge for the nth time for the same crime. The jail there has been chronically overflowing for decades, even after multiple court decrees declaring such overcrowding to be illegal. There's little appetite to keep expanding jail space, so even if judges started handing out harsher sentences, unless the crime becomes one that requires prison rather than jail, there's no where to put the thieves when caught.
  - sammyq 5y ago
    Any source for Atlanta? I’ve never heard of high surveillance or anything.
  - anovikov 5y ago
    Why little appetite? What's difficulty building massive (possibly housing many millions, to deter people properly), gulag-style camps? And make sure to keep them till they become too old to be a serious threat. Seriously, just clean the streets.
- malermeister 5y ago
  Maybe instead of creating a police state to "remove people forever", we should make sure people don't become homeless drug addicts in the first place? The US has a dearth of psychiatric beds available, with 14 beds per 100k population. The EU for comparison has 69. Experts say you need at least 50. [0] [1]. You have all these people that need help, but have no way of getting it. Add to that the rampant inequality and the high cost of housing and it's no surprise things got this bad. We need to fix the systemic issues, not just lock up some poor souls that were failed by the system. [0] https://www.npr.org/2017/11/30/567477160/how-the-loss-of-u-s-psychiatric-hospitals-led-to-a-mental-health-crisis?t=1639762790080 https://www.npr.org/2017/11/30/567477160/how-the-loss-of-u-s... [1] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/-/edn-20191009-1 https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/-/e...
  - adamrezich 5y ago
    this is a naive view of the world. not all homelessness is involuntary. the issue is much more complex than "why don't we just do more to help these people?"
    - malermeister 5y ago
      I'm from Austria and homelessness is a non-issue here. There's 15k homeless in the entire country. [0] I can't even remember the last time I saw a homeless person in Vienna, a city of two million people. The reason it's like that is because we fixed the systemic issues that plague the US. [1] It's not my view of the world that's naive. It's yours that's overly cynical and that cynicism is holding your country back. [0] https://www.feantsa.org/download/austria-20178599194934673684360.pdf https://www.feantsa.org/download/austria-2017859919493467368... [1] https://crosscut.com/2017/06/homelessness-housing-crisis-seattle-vienna-solution https://crosscut.com/2017/06/homelessness-housing-crisis-sea...
      - willcipriano 5y ago
        Factoring for population that's almost identical. 0.16% for Austria and 0.17% for the US, given my back of the envelope math and a quick Google search. You sure those systemic issues are fixed? edit: Numbers I used. Austria 8933346[0]/15000[1] - 0.16% US: 330000000[2]/580466[3] - 0.17% [0]https://www.migration.gv.at/en/living-and-working-in-austria/austria-at-a-glance/geography-and-population/ https://www.migration.gv.at/en/living-and-working-in-austria... [1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29596289 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29596289 [2]https://www.census.gov/popclock/ https://www.census.gov/popclock/ [3]https://endhomelessness.org/homelessness-in-america/homelessness-statistics/state-of-homelessness-2021/ https://endhomelessness.org/homelessness-in-america/homeless...
- olyjohn 5y ago
  This has to be a troll post. And it seems to have worked.
- lupire 5y ago
  I agree. Removing SUV drivers from urban areas is a great idea. It would bring housing costs down, reducing the amount of homeless drug addicts.
hoppyhoppy2 5y ago
Wouldn't an open trunk run the risk of turning into a poop trunk? But I suppose even that would be easier to clean up (even if far more gross) than fixing a forcibly-popped trunk.
- josephcsible 5y ago
  Do the thieves re-secure your car after they steal everything of value from it? If not, then aren't you at risk of a "poop trunk" anyway?
  - hoppyhoppy2 5y ago
    Presumably a trunk that's always left open would have more poopable hours than a trunk that's forced open once a month or whatever.
- arwineap 5y ago
  Pooping outside seems just as simple / easy, and that keeps the car clean so you can sleep inside... Not sure why anyone would decide to poop in a trunk.
  - gwilikers 5y ago
    Spite?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - ctime 5y ago
    I remember when a co-worker whom lived in SF (Outer Richmond, iirc) notified the team they would be late to work. Apparently, this coworker’s garage door had a small hole in it where a wood knot once was. At night, someone decided it would be a good idea to poop through it. In the morning he opened the garage door and essentially poo flung all up and down his car and into the garage. Talk about having a shitty day.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
arwineap 5y ago
> Photos posted on social media and shared by the San Francisco-based news station KGO-TV showed two SUVs parked side by side along an Oakland street. I couldn't find the photos or the newscast on TFA; what's interesting is just exactly how little content is on this page. Even the description of these photos mentions there are just two trunks open. Is this news? Is it even really happening? Seems like it could have just as easily been two people returning from the store at the same time. Although I'm not sure I'd be taxi'ing groceries with my trunk open in oakland, but it's certainly something I've done elsewhere.
- arwineap 5y ago
  I found a video here: https://abc7news.com/san-francisco-car-break-ins-oakland-why-not-to-leave-your-trunk-open/11341223/ https://abc7news.com/san-francisco-car-break-ins-oakland-why... These are trunks open in the middle of the day right outside of businesses, there's no interview with any of the owners, it's just a photo with two trunks open in the middle of the day with a metric ton of conjecture around it. There's not a shred of even _circumstantial_ evidence in this whole news piece. Then they went off and interviewed police and asking them if they had ever heard of it. THEY ARE STUNNED. Of course they are; this was completely fabricated.
  - foofoo4u 5y ago
    I agree; we don't know why the trunks where left open. There was no investigation into the matter. Assumptions are being made here. This is shallow news reporting.
- foofoo4u 5y ago
  This is an annoying aspect of many news articles where they reference events without ever providing links. This makes it difficult to decipher whether the claims are made up or not.
jaclaz 5y ago
Out of curiosity, anyone has an idea of the technology involved: >Oakland Deputy Chief of Police Drennon Lindsey told the station that residents should be aware that some thieves have technology that enables them to locate items like laptops if left hidden in an unattended vehicle. I mean x-ray visors or what?
- ganoushoreilly 5y ago
  This could be a generic claim, but some devices are detectible in low power mode via BTLE / Wifi emissions. I would generalize though that this is more a scare comment for people not to leave valuables in the car.
  - gnu8 5y ago
    Homeless drug addicts don’t have BTLE sniffing equipment. It is more likely techbros looking for laptops with valuable information on them.
    - ganoushoreilly 5y ago
      Oh I agree I think it’s just to scare people into thinking about leaving stuff.
  - gpsx 5y ago
    I have been warned of this before. Technically it seems easy enough. I do not treat it as a scare tactic but would be interested in hearing opinions on it from others.
    - jaclaz 5y ago
      A whole new market is created (out of nothing) for Faraday bags?
    - ganoushoreilly 5y ago
      The easiest response is just don’t leave valuables in the car. Otherwise 100% expect you are tracked for advertising purposes in stores via fingerprinting. Have been for years.
xrd 5y ago
It is not going to take a super sophisticated AI program to predict whether we will be seeing lots of op-eds soon telling us we need to double the law enforcement budgets to solve these problems. Speaking of AI, we are a lot more easily manipulated by stories like this than AI would ever be. Humans don't pay attention to where the majority of our tax dollars are going; at least AI would be numerically based instead of purely emotional reactionary voting.
mikestew 5y ago
The dearth of supporting information in TFA (one unreliable witness, and a whole bunch of conjecture and assumptions) is an example of why Newsweek is blocked in my Apple News feed. It's not the printed news weekly your Mom used to subscribe to, it's now online-only clickbait AFAICT. I mean, how much verifiable content is on that page? Is there any?
mc32 5y ago
I think this is indicative of the slow break down of civil society. To some extent you can "throw more cops" at the problem, but at some point, you have to realize that it's the people, the society and what they put up with. Be it at home, in school, in pop culture, etc. Accepting petty crime as part of every day life eventually erodes enough civility that at some point the criminals realize they have overwhelmed the system. People are afraid to speak up when Johnny does something inappropriate. "How dare you scold my kid". There is no longer much social pressure to conform. It has good aspects (people can now do activities that harm no one else and no one will bat an eye, but also this same sword allows opportunists to take advantage of the situation. It's a multi decade phenomenon. At some point, people will get fed up and the stars will align and the pendulum will swing the other way (Wild West initially vs Statehood later on)
- afsafsaf 5y ago
  I don't think SF's situation is indicative of civil society. This is very specific to crime issues of the Bay. There are places in the world where I could leave my wallet at a restaurant, walk away to go to the bathroom and it would be waiting for me when I was back.
  - dmd 5y ago
    Even here in Boston I would be pretty surprised if I did that and my wallet were stolen anywhere but the most high-throughput of places like a highway rest stop. A restaurant? I'd be shocked. The world is a lot less dangerous than I think a lot of people believe.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - adamrezich 5y ago
    this kind of overall breakdown is happening in places that aren't just SF though. I moved away from my hometown in South Dakota, moved back a few years later, and was shocked to see how much more common theft is at stores, how most gas stations near major roads now have hired security at night, and so forth. local law enforcement is constantly putting out PSAs telling people to not leave firearms in their unlocked vehicles at night as they're being stolen and used in crime.
unethical_ban 5y ago
Are neighborhood watches not a thing? Cell phones and baseball bats would probably help keep people from busting into cars. I mean this genuinely: When the police fail, it is up to the citizens to secure themselves and their property.
- milkytron 5y ago
  These thieves are skilled. I've seen videos where it takes them no more than 3-5 seconds to break window, grab something, and get into a getaway vehicle. You can watch outside nonstop, like a camera would, but these things happen so quickly that the chance of you being able to do anything beyond maybe seeing the license plate of the getaway vehicle is pretty low. To protect against this requires money (secured garage/parking), not just vigilantism.
litoE 5y ago
What's the easiest way to dispose of your trash in San Francisco? Gift-wrap it and leave it on the front seat of your car!
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
foofoo4u 5y ago
I have experienced two car break-ins since moving to the Bay Area. For those of you who have never lived or visited here before, you may find it surprising to see "don't leave valuables in your car" signs are posted everywhere in most parking lots. Its the sign of the times (literally). I remember growing up in other parts of California where car break-ins were rare and wasn't something you always had to think about. Its sad to see how rampant it is now.

36 points by kerneloftruth 5y ago

Crazy why this is happening in a developed country. Why not just put cameras everywhere, track and remove these people forever? It shouldn't be so hard to do - they aren't some organised crime, just a bunch of homeless drug addicts.

junon 5y ago
> Why not just put cameras everywhere, track and remove these people forever? Ballsy question to ask here on HN...
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
hoppyhoppy2 5y ago
Why should anyone have any freedom or privacy, really? We could have much less crime under a totalitarian system. Also, to where do you propose to "remove" these people forever, and how much would that cost? Is this a proposal for a "final solution"?
- josephcsible 5y ago
  There's no "freedom" to break into people's cars, and there shouldn't be.
  - lkschubert8 5y ago
    I think the argument isn't that people should be free to do that, but that it may not be worth giving that level of observational ability to the governing body to stop car break ins.
  - kerneloftruth 5y ago
    San Francisco in particular, and California overall, have reduced breaking into cars, and looting from stores to mere misdemeanors. Plus, they have abolished bail, so there's no detainment, and really no consequence. That all adds up to a position where the state says that property crime doesn't matter anymore. From this point, society crumbles. It's actually reasonable in this circumstance to propose and demand a return to law and order. Citizens now know that the police will not protect them, so a rise in vigilantism is understandable, and necessary where politicians have truly abdicated that responsibility. The ill conceived social experiment done by the Left has failed, and everybody sees that now.... even mayor London Breed.
- Mountain_Skies 5y ago
  History does seem to point towards the public welcoming more totalitarian systems when more free systems fail to address issues such as public safety. Regardless of if that's good for the public in the long run or not doesn't stop it from seeming like a good idea at the time when the "free" system shows no hope of being able to address the situation.
Ekaros 5y ago
Or there could even just be civilian clothed police and arrest and prosecute the perpetrators... Should give a hint in reasonable amount of time...
- rasz 5y ago
  That would be racist.
klyrs 5y ago
How do you propose to "remove" them "forever"? Are you suggesting the death penalty for petty theft? Or housing them and feeding them for the rest of their lives without possibility of parole or remediation? The US already has more prisoners per capita than any other country in the world. Is the "throw everybody you don't like in jail" approach actually working?
- anovikov 5y ago
  Massive, multimillion people gulag style camp system where people are forced to work on infrastructure projects for 10-15 year sentences (till they are too old to be a threat anymore), for yes things like petty theft. And yes this system must be built with an explicit goal to make a profit and have no outside funding. If it makes no profit, simplify security (less fancy cameras, guard shifts etc and more bullets). Eradicate the motivation for behaviour like that - make sure people know that stealing stuff from cars results in a multiple year incarceration with hard work and a bullet for minimal disobeyance (and probably, because we all know nearly none of these people can get fixed, with a goal of destroying their health and physical abilities to the point they really won't be a threat once released).
MarcelOlsz 5y ago
They didn't just sprout out of the ground. They are not the cause, they are also a symptom of a broken system.
gromitss 5y ago
Cameras everywhere so 99% of the population is constantly surveilled? No thanks.
Mountain_Skies 5y ago
Atlanta has one of the highest surveillance cameras per capita rates in the world and people who live in certain neighborhoods there know to leave their car doors unlocked to avoid getting their windows smashed. Having lots of cameras don't do you any good if no one watches or reviews them. Also many of these thieves are already well known to the police and get little more than time-served when they go before a judge for the nth time for the same crime. The jail there has been chronically overflowing for decades, even after multiple court decrees declaring such overcrowding to be illegal. There's little appetite to keep expanding jail space, so even if judges started handing out harsher sentences, unless the crime becomes one that requires prison rather than jail, there's no where to put the thieves when caught.
- sammyq 5y ago
  Any source for Atlanta? I’ve never heard of high surveillance or anything.
- anovikov 5y ago
  Why little appetite? What's difficulty building massive (possibly housing many millions, to deter people properly), gulag-style camps? And make sure to keep them till they become too old to be a serious threat. Seriously, just clean the streets.
malermeister 5y ago
Maybe instead of creating a police state to "remove people forever", we should make sure people don't become homeless drug addicts in the first place? The US has a dearth of psychiatric beds available, with 14 beds per 100k population. The EU for comparison has 69. Experts say you need at least 50. [0] [1]. You have all these people that need help, but have no way of getting it. Add to that the rampant inequality and the high cost of housing and it's no surprise things got this bad. We need to fix the systemic issues, not just lock up some poor souls that were failed by the system. [0] https://www.npr.org/2017/11/30/567477160/how-the-loss-of-u-s-psychiatric-hospitals-led-to-a-mental-health-crisis?t=1639762790080 https://www.npr.org/2017/11/30/567477160/how-the-loss-of-u-s... [1] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/-/edn-20191009-1 https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/-/e...
- adamrezich 5y ago
  this is a naive view of the world. not all homelessness is involuntary. the issue is much more complex than "why don't we just do more to help these people?"
  - malermeister 5y ago
    I'm from Austria and homelessness is a non-issue here. There's 15k homeless in the entire country. [0] I can't even remember the last time I saw a homeless person in Vienna, a city of two million people. The reason it's like that is because we fixed the systemic issues that plague the US. [1] It's not my view of the world that's naive. It's yours that's overly cynical and that cynicism is holding your country back. [0] https://www.feantsa.org/download/austria-20178599194934673684360.pdf https://www.feantsa.org/download/austria-2017859919493467368... [1] https://crosscut.com/2017/06/homelessness-housing-crisis-seattle-vienna-solution https://crosscut.com/2017/06/homelessness-housing-crisis-sea...
    - willcipriano 5y ago
      Factoring for population that's almost identical. 0.16% for Austria and 0.17% for the US, given my back of the envelope math and a quick Google search. You sure those systemic issues are fixed? edit: Numbers I used. Austria 8933346[0]/15000[1] - 0.16% US: 330000000[2]/580466[3] - 0.17% [0]https://www.migration.gv.at/en/living-and-working-in-austria/austria-at-a-glance/geography-and-population/ https://www.migration.gv.at/en/living-and-working-in-austria... [1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29596289 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29596289 [2]https://www.census.gov/popclock/ https://www.census.gov/popclock/ [3]https://endhomelessness.org/homelessness-in-america/homelessness-statistics/state-of-homelessness-2021/ https://endhomelessness.org/homelessness-in-america/homeless...
olyjohn 5y ago
This has to be a troll post. And it seems to have worked.
lupire 5y ago
I agree. Removing SUV drivers from urban areas is a great idea. It would bring housing costs down, reducing the amount of homeless drug addicts.

hoppyhoppy2 5y ago

Wouldn't an open trunk run the risk of turning into a poop trunk? But I suppose even that would be easier to clean up (even if far more gross) than fixing a forcibly-popped trunk.

josephcsible 5y ago
Do the thieves re-secure your car after they steal everything of value from it? If not, then aren't you at risk of a "poop trunk" anyway?
- hoppyhoppy2 5y ago
  Presumably a trunk that's always left open would have more poopable hours than a trunk that's forced open once a month or whatever.
arwineap 5y ago
Pooping outside seems just as simple / easy, and that keeps the car clean so you can sleep inside... Not sure why anyone would decide to poop in a trunk.
- gwilikers 5y ago
  Spite?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- ctime 5y ago
  I remember when a co-worker whom lived in SF (Outer Richmond, iirc) notified the team they would be late to work. Apparently, this coworker’s garage door had a small hole in it where a wood knot once was. At night, someone decided it would be a good idea to poop through it. In the morning he opened the garage door and essentially poo flung all up and down his car and into the garage. Talk about having a shitty day.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

arwineap 5y ago

> Photos posted on social media and shared by the San Francisco-based news station KGO-TV showed two SUVs parked side by side along an Oakland street. I couldn't find the photos or the newscast on TFA; what's interesting is just exactly how little content is on this page. Even the description of these photos mentions there are just two trunks open. Is this news? Is it even really happening? Seems like it could have just as easily been two people returning from the store at the same time. Although I'm not sure I'd be taxi'ing groceries with my trunk open in oakland, but it's certainly something I've done elsewhere.

arwineap 5y ago
I found a video here: https://abc7news.com/san-francisco-car-break-ins-oakland-why-not-to-leave-your-trunk-open/11341223/ https://abc7news.com/san-francisco-car-break-ins-oakland-why... These are trunks open in the middle of the day right outside of businesses, there's no interview with any of the owners, it's just a photo with two trunks open in the middle of the day with a metric ton of conjecture around it. There's not a shred of even _circumstantial_ evidence in this whole news piece. Then they went off and interviewed police and asking them if they had ever heard of it. THEY ARE STUNNED. Of course they are; this was completely fabricated.
- foofoo4u 5y ago
  I agree; we don't know why the trunks where left open. There was no investigation into the matter. Assumptions are being made here. This is shallow news reporting.
foofoo4u 5y ago
This is an annoying aspect of many news articles where they reference events without ever providing links. This makes it difficult to decipher whether the claims are made up or not.

jaclaz 5y ago

Out of curiosity, anyone has an idea of the technology involved: >Oakland Deputy Chief of Police Drennon Lindsey told the station that residents should be aware that some thieves have technology that enables them to locate items like laptops if left hidden in an unattended vehicle. I mean x-ray visors or what?

ganoushoreilly 5y ago
This could be a generic claim, but some devices are detectible in low power mode via BTLE / Wifi emissions. I would generalize though that this is more a scare comment for people not to leave valuables in the car.
- gnu8 5y ago
  Homeless drug addicts don’t have BTLE sniffing equipment. It is more likely techbros looking for laptops with valuable information on them.
  - ganoushoreilly 5y ago
    Oh I agree I think it’s just to scare people into thinking about leaving stuff.
- gpsx 5y ago
  I have been warned of this before. Technically it seems easy enough. I do not treat it as a scare tactic but would be interested in hearing opinions on it from others.
  - jaclaz 5y ago
    A whole new market is created (out of nothing) for Faraday bags?
  - ganoushoreilly 5y ago
    The easiest response is just don’t leave valuables in the car. Otherwise 100% expect you are tracked for advertising purposes in stores via fingerprinting. Have been for years.

xrd 5y ago

It is not going to take a super sophisticated AI program to predict whether we will be seeing lots of op-eds soon telling us we need to double the law enforcement budgets to solve these problems. Speaking of AI, we are a lot more easily manipulated by stories like this than AI would ever be. Humans don't pay attention to where the majority of our tax dollars are going; at least AI would be numerically based instead of purely emotional reactionary voting.

mikestew 5y ago

The dearth of supporting information in TFA (one unreliable witness, and a whole bunch of conjecture and assumptions) is an example of why Newsweek is blocked in my Apple News feed. It's not the printed news weekly your Mom used to subscribe to, it's now online-only clickbait AFAICT. I mean, how much verifiable content is on that page? Is there any?

mc32 5y ago

I think this is indicative of the slow break down of civil society. To some extent you can "throw more cops" at the problem, but at some point, you have to realize that it's the people, the society and what they put up with. Be it at home, in school, in pop culture, etc. Accepting petty crime as part of every day life eventually erodes enough civility that at some point the criminals realize they have overwhelmed the system. People are afraid to speak up when Johnny does something inappropriate. "How dare you scold my kid". There is no longer much social pressure to conform. It has good aspects (people can now do activities that harm no one else and no one will bat an eye, but also this same sword allows opportunists to take advantage of the situation. It's a multi decade phenomenon. At some point, people will get fed up and the stars will align and the pendulum will swing the other way (Wild West initially vs Statehood later on)

afsafsaf 5y ago
I don't think SF's situation is indicative of civil society. This is very specific to crime issues of the Bay. There are places in the world where I could leave my wallet at a restaurant, walk away to go to the bathroom and it would be waiting for me when I was back.
- dmd 5y ago
  Even here in Boston I would be pretty surprised if I did that and my wallet were stolen anywhere but the most high-throughput of places like a highway rest stop. A restaurant? I'd be shocked. The world is a lot less dangerous than I think a lot of people believe.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- adamrezich 5y ago
  this kind of overall breakdown is happening in places that aren't just SF though. I moved away from my hometown in South Dakota, moved back a few years later, and was shocked to see how much more common theft is at stores, how most gas stations near major roads now have hired security at night, and so forth. local law enforcement is constantly putting out PSAs telling people to not leave firearms in their unlocked vehicles at night as they're being stolen and used in crime.

unethical_ban 5y ago

Are neighborhood watches not a thing? Cell phones and baseball bats would probably help keep people from busting into cars. I mean this genuinely: When the police fail, it is up to the citizens to secure themselves and their property.

milkytron 5y ago
These thieves are skilled. I've seen videos where it takes them no more than 3-5 seconds to break window, grab something, and get into a getaway vehicle. You can watch outside nonstop, like a camera would, but these things happen so quickly that the chance of you being able to do anything beyond maybe seeing the license plate of the getaway vehicle is pretty low. To protect against this requires money (secured garage/parking), not just vigilantism.

litoE 5y ago

What's the easiest way to dispose of your trash in San Francisco? Gift-wrap it and leave it on the front seat of your car!

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

foofoo4u 5y ago

I have experienced two car break-ins since moving to the Bay Area. For those of you who have never lived or visited here before, you may find it surprising to see "don't leave valuables in your car" signs are posted everywhere in most parking lots. Its the sign of the times (literally). I remember growing up in other parts of California where car break-ins were rare and wasn't something you always had to think about. Its sad to see how rampant it is now.