7 ms·

I had a car broken into this last weekend. They broke into every rental car in the lot (by the ferry building). A police officer was rolling through, telling

I had a car broken into this last weekend. They broke into every rental car in the lot (by the ferry building). A police officer was rolling through, telling people not to leave anything visible in their cars (nothing was visible in mine). I asked him if I could file a report, and he told me I would have to go to the station. He told me he wasn't sticking around and refused to take a report. I had a similar experience last year with an officer who tried to talk us out of filing a report for a man with a hatchet who had shattered car windows with it, and I had a dispatcher refuse to send an officer for a theft crew that I'd stopped in the middle of breaking into a car before they waved a gun at me and drove at me and my son over the sidewalk. I've also had them refuse to take reports at our neighborhood station, forcing me to go to the Mission station to file a report. The police in San Francisco are less than useless. We should fire the whole set and start over.

eyelidlessness 4y ago
rufus_foreman 4y ago
Who did you vote for?
- RJIb8RBYxzAMX9u 4y ago
  I'm not OP but not everyone could vote due to e.g. residency requirements, like me. So I "voted" the only way I could: with my feet.
- epistasis 4y ago
  This is somewhat irrelevant, the police operate like a gang. There was an entire recall election becuase of "lawlessness" but it turns out that it was not the DA that was the problem, it's the police force refusing to address crime. Seems pretty likely to be direct corruption organized with the thieves.
- LAC-Tech 4y ago
  You can't vote yourself out of this situation.
  - junofan 4y ago
    I voted by leaving. Much happier.
- eyelidlessness 4y ago
- bagels 4y ago
  We don't elect police officers here.
thatguy0900 4y ago
As long as politicians and da are dead set on police not actually convicting anyone you can replace the police as many times as you want. Not that they are good, but they probably don't want to bother charging someone who will be released without a slap on the wrist the next day anyway.
- chaboud 4y ago
  Boudin's conviction rate was higher than his predecessor....
gresrun 4y ago
I tried to file a report with video evidence from the car 2 years ago. I was never able to get through to anyone at the police who would take the report, just passed to a voicemail and no one ever called back or acknowledged the report.
jshzglr 4y ago
You can replace the police force, nothing will change. When cops feel unwanted and disrespected they act accordingly. There's a reason we have a history of unwarranted respect for cops and military members. It's not because they always deserve it, but because you want them to feel like they do.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- carom 4y ago
  Cops have been useless for a long time. It is why everyone currently hates them. They don't work for us. They don't protect us. They extract money from us to justify their existence. Truly useless.
  - jshzglr 4y ago
    - dang 4y ago
      Would you please stop breaking the site guidelines in HN comments? You've unfortunately been doing it repeatedly, and we have to eventually ban such accounts. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.
  - chasebank 4y ago
    You'd find out very quickly how truly heinous humans can be without a police force.
    - vkou 4y ago
      Yes, it's easy for humans to behave in truly heinous ways if you give them the power to inflict violence on you, with next to no accountability counterbalancing it.
notyourwork 4y ago
And this is a reason among others why I left. Tired of the bullshit.
LAC-Tech 4y ago
In New Zealand they keep police numbers low deliberately. It keeps "crime rates" low because people stop reporting crimes. I'd be inclined to blame low numbers of police rather than police apathy. But I haven't actually seen a policeman on the street in my country - outside protests - for at least a decade. The fact that you actually found one outside in the wild is remarkable to me.
asiachick 4y ago
> telling people not to leave anything visible in their cars I effing hate that attitude. We shouldn't have to live in a society where every moment you have to be vigilant against the bad guys. It keeps piling on. I suspect if we keep this up there will be signs "don't use your phone in public" (because people will steal phones from your hands). "don't eat in public" (because people will steal food from you). "don't drive a car" (because your car will be wrecked/stolen). "Don't leave your house" (because outside you're likely to be mugged). The whole point of having police instead of having to walk around with your own armor and armed guards is so we can not have to put up with this stuff. But nearly everyone, at least on the west, takes it for granted that "it's just the way it is". It's not. It's the way we let it be. Not every place/country has this issue. We let it get there by both by encouraging it ("looking for a partner in crime") and by letting it slide (see police response above) This isn't just SF. In Berlin I was told not to put my bag between my legs because someone would steal it from behind. In Paris a friend had her wallet stolen from her purse in ~15 seconds. She reached into her purse for her camera, took a picture, looked back into her purse, saw her wallet was gone.
- maerF0x0 4y ago
  > We shouldn't have to live in a society where every moment you have to be vigilant against the bad guys. > having to walk around with your own armor and armed guards is so we can not have to put up with this stuff The net result wont be hyper vigilant people (as in they modify their behavior). The net result will be fight or flight. Vigilantes, or migration. I found myself getting increasingly ready for violence in SF. I didn't want that to be my story and I have the self control and self awareness to do something else. So I left, and though it pains me I will probably never live there again. California as a piece of the earth is amazing, but a minority of the people there make it terrible.
  - klipklop 4y ago
    Considering violence to protect your property is a fool's errand in CA. The people attempting to steal from you have a very low chance of going to jail. You resorting to violence to stop it has a very, very high chance of you getting significant time in jail. You did the most reasonable thing by leaving.
neilv 4y ago
> I had a dispatcher refuse to send an officer for a theft crew that I'd stopped in the middle of breaking into a car before they waved a gun at me and drove at me and my son over the sidewalk. That encounter with the thieves sounds awful, and then being unable to get police help sounds doubly awful. I hope your son wasn't traumatized by it. FWIW, not all cities are like that. The couple times someone pulled a gun on me on the sidewalk in Cambridge (Mass.), a large number of police cruisers responded, and started a very professional-seeming search. The time that I called police before I got home, after they got a description and then statement from me, one of the officers gave me a ride home. Cambridge isn't as great as it could be for founders (not as much action as the Bay Area, and the bottom-end apartments might be $2K+ and still have peeling lead paint and the occasional mold or rat), but you do get good police.
- linksnapzz 4y ago
  For what Cambridge cops make, they ought to be good!
- aagha 4y ago
  "couple times"?!
- fho 4y ago
  > The couple times someone pulled a gun on me As a German that sentence sounds so absurd. I am in my mid-30s and have never held a gun myself. The only weapons I saw in Germany were (holstered) guns on policemen.
  - neilv 4y ago
    I think it's not normal in the US to have a gun pulled on you. But maybe not too unusual for a city person to have been mugged at gun or knife point, at least once. The reason I've been mugged multiple times is that I used to walk many, many more hours late at night in cities than most US people do. (I also discouraged numerous opportunistic mugging approaches, before they happened.) I've never held a gun. And I'd guess most US coastal city people almost never see guns in person, except like you describe. Despite the impression we get of the US from TV shows and movies, about half the US votes for the political party that says we need more restrictions on guns.

eyelidlessness 4y ago

rufus_foreman 4y ago

Who did you vote for?

RJIb8RBYxzAMX9u 4y ago
I'm not OP but not everyone could vote due to e.g. residency requirements, like me. So I "voted" the only way I could: with my feet.
epistasis 4y ago
This is somewhat irrelevant, the police operate like a gang. There was an entire recall election becuase of "lawlessness" but it turns out that it was not the DA that was the problem, it's the police force refusing to address crime. Seems pretty likely to be direct corruption organized with the thieves.
LAC-Tech 4y ago
You can't vote yourself out of this situation.
- junofan 4y ago
  I voted by leaving. Much happier.
eyelidlessness 4y ago
bagels 4y ago
We don't elect police officers here.

thatguy0900 4y ago

As long as politicians and da are dead set on police not actually convicting anyone you can replace the police as many times as you want. Not that they are good, but they probably don't want to bother charging someone who will be released without a slap on the wrist the next day anyway.

chaboud 4y ago
Boudin's conviction rate was higher than his predecessor....

gresrun 4y ago

I tried to file a report with video evidence from the car 2 years ago. I was never able to get through to anyone at the police who would take the report, just passed to a voicemail and no one ever called back or acknowledged the report.

jshzglr 4y ago

You can replace the police force, nothing will change. When cops feel unwanted and disrespected they act accordingly. There's a reason we have a history of unwarranted respect for cops and military members. It's not because they always deserve it, but because you want them to feel like they do.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
carom 4y ago
Cops have been useless for a long time. It is why everyone currently hates them. They don't work for us. They don't protect us. They extract money from us to justify their existence. Truly useless.
- jshzglr 4y ago
  - dang 4y ago
    Would you please stop breaking the site guidelines in HN comments? You've unfortunately been doing it repeatedly, and we have to eventually ban such accounts. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.
- chasebank 4y ago
  You'd find out very quickly how truly heinous humans can be without a police force.
  - vkou 4y ago
    Yes, it's easy for humans to behave in truly heinous ways if you give them the power to inflict violence on you, with next to no accountability counterbalancing it.

notyourwork 4y ago

And this is a reason among others why I left. Tired of the bullshit.

LAC-Tech 4y ago

In New Zealand they keep police numbers low deliberately. It keeps "crime rates" low because people stop reporting crimes. I'd be inclined to blame low numbers of police rather than police apathy. But I haven't actually seen a policeman on the street in my country - outside protests - for at least a decade. The fact that you actually found one outside in the wild is remarkable to me.

asiachick 4y ago

> telling people not to leave anything visible in their cars I effing hate that attitude. We shouldn't have to live in a society where every moment you have to be vigilant against the bad guys. It keeps piling on. I suspect if we keep this up there will be signs "don't use your phone in public" (because people will steal phones from your hands). "don't eat in public" (because people will steal food from you). "don't drive a car" (because your car will be wrecked/stolen). "Don't leave your house" (because outside you're likely to be mugged). The whole point of having police instead of having to walk around with your own armor and armed guards is so we can not have to put up with this stuff. But nearly everyone, at least on the west, takes it for granted that "it's just the way it is". It's not. It's the way we let it be. Not every place/country has this issue. We let it get there by both by encouraging it ("looking for a partner in crime") and by letting it slide (see police response above) This isn't just SF. In Berlin I was told not to put my bag between my legs because someone would steal it from behind. In Paris a friend had her wallet stolen from her purse in ~15 seconds. She reached into her purse for her camera, took a picture, looked back into her purse, saw her wallet was gone.

maerF0x0 4y ago
> We shouldn't have to live in a society where every moment you have to be vigilant against the bad guys. > having to walk around with your own armor and armed guards is so we can not have to put up with this stuff The net result wont be hyper vigilant people (as in they modify their behavior). The net result will be fight or flight. Vigilantes, or migration. I found myself getting increasingly ready for violence in SF. I didn't want that to be my story and I have the self control and self awareness to do something else. So I left, and though it pains me I will probably never live there again. California as a piece of the earth is amazing, but a minority of the people there make it terrible.
- klipklop 4y ago
  Considering violence to protect your property is a fool's errand in CA. The people attempting to steal from you have a very low chance of going to jail. You resorting to violence to stop it has a very, very high chance of you getting significant time in jail. You did the most reasonable thing by leaving.

neilv 4y ago

> I had a dispatcher refuse to send an officer for a theft crew that I'd stopped in the middle of breaking into a car before they waved a gun at me and drove at me and my son over the sidewalk. That encounter with the thieves sounds awful, and then being unable to get police help sounds doubly awful. I hope your son wasn't traumatized by it. FWIW, not all cities are like that. The couple times someone pulled a gun on me on the sidewalk in Cambridge (Mass.), a large number of police cruisers responded, and started a very professional-seeming search. The time that I called police before I got home, after they got a description and then statement from me, one of the officers gave me a ride home. Cambridge isn't as great as it could be for founders (not as much action as the Bay Area, and the bottom-end apartments might be $2K+ and still have peeling lead paint and the occasional mold or rat), but you do get good police.

linksnapzz 4y ago
For what Cambridge cops make, they ought to be good!
aagha 4y ago
"couple times"?!
fho 4y ago
> The couple times someone pulled a gun on me As a German that sentence sounds so absurd. I am in my mid-30s and have never held a gun myself. The only weapons I saw in Germany were (holstered) guns on policemen.
- neilv 4y ago
  I think it's not normal in the US to have a gun pulled on you. But maybe not too unusual for a city person to have been mugged at gun or knife point, at least once. The reason I've been mugged multiple times is that I used to walk many, many more hours late at night in cities than most US people do. (I also discouraged numerous opportunistic mugging approaches, before they happened.) I've never held a gun. And I'd guess most US coastal city people almost never see guns in person, except like you describe. Despite the impression we get of the US from TV shows and movies, about half the US votes for the political party that says we need more restrictions on guns.