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Bob Lee, former CTO of Square, has died after being stabbed in San Francisco
- mkolodny 4y agoIf it's true, condolences and love to his family.
- xivzgrev 4y agoThis is sad. Scary too - That area is ok crime wise so seems like a freak accident. Or possibly an argument gone wrong. Lot of people here railing on homeless people - police don’t have any suspects.
- polio 4y agoWhere does it indicate the identity of the decedent?
- madrox 4y agoIt doesn't, but the poster is a reputable account. I have to assume this is correct.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- rdl 4y agoIt was first reported here on Twitter (https://twitter.com/lucy_guo/status/1643451123230031872 https://twitter.com/lucy_guo/status/1643451123230031872) -- I'm friends with a bunch of people at MobileCoin where he was working and unfortunately it is true. I only met Bob once but he was a great man. (Trying to just be sad about his loss and not angry at what San Francisco has become, but it's hard.)
- achow 4y agoTragic. From tweets it appears that he had moved to Miami, came back to SF on a work trip for a day - and this happened.
- Atlas22 4y agoThat's even more depressing, can't even visit for a day without risking life (assuming it wasn't targeted). May he rest in peace.
- NickSingh 4y agoSuper sad, and I'm assuming that moving from SF to Miami was in part due to crime issue.
- spoonjim 4y agoThat wouldn’t make sense, Miami’s homicide rate is much higher than San Francisco’s.
- kortilla 4y agoHomicide rates aren’t relevant to a regular person. What matters is the probability of being a victim of a violent crime or a homicide when you weren’t involved in a criminal organization or weren’t already committing a crime. Many cities with high homicide rates have them specifically because of gang activities and they don’t have any relevance to regular citizens. Additionally, gun friendly states with “stand your ground” laws will have higher homicide rates just from self defense in robberies. Tldr; homicide rate is meaningless to how safe you are as a bystander.
- foreverobama 4y ago[dead]
- DangitBobby 4y agoThe tweet has been deleted, unfortunately.
- DantesKite 4y agoJake Shields says that it was someone reputable in the tech industry and a close friend of his who was killed. And that the family doesn't want to reveal the name yet.[1][2] Additionally, if you search through Jake Shield's Twitter feed, you'll find instances where Bob Lee talked to him. [3][4] UPDATE: Jake Shields confirms it was Bob Lee. [5] [1] https://twitter.com/jakeshieldsajj/status/1643448819173195776?s=20 https://twitter.com/jakeshieldsajj/status/164344881917319577... [2] https://twitter.com/jakeshieldsajj/status/1643461847390261248?s=20 https://twitter.com/jakeshieldsajj/status/164346184739026124... [3] https://twitter.com/crazybob/status/1538245201734406144?s=20 https://twitter.com/crazybob/status/1538245201734406144?s=20 [4] https://twitter.com/crazybob/status/1587914051715227652?s=20 https://twitter.com/crazybob/status/1587914051715227652?s=20 [5] https://twitter.com/jakeshieldsajj/status/1643470001566015488?s=20 https://twitter.com/jakeshieldsajj/status/164347000156601548...
- madrox 4y agoI lived a block from here prior to Covid, and I would've called this a safe part of town. Honestly incredible there was a stabbing there. My condolences to the family. The guy was too young.
- UberFly 4y agoUnfortunately even in safer areas there are predators out looking for prey at 2:35 a.m., especially in places where crime is now epidemic.
- assimpleaspossi 4y agoNothing good ever happens at 2:35 in the morning.
- layer8 4y agoEspecially during spring DST switchover.
- hackernewds 4y agoSan Francisco, as you must be aware, has changed a LOT since pre-Covid. Arguably the administration and policies are surely to blame. Hope this is a wake up call, but evidence points to the contrary in present day SF
- madrox 4y agoIt's one thing to have heard rumblings and another to hear about this happening a block from your old home. Upsetting story on many levels.
- somsak2 4y agopost COVID, SoMa is maybe second only to the tenderloin in how overrun it is by the homeless
- 4y ago
- anoy8888 4y agoWe all thought we will live into 80s but you never know if tomorrow is not your end.
- PieUser 4y agoNo where in the article does it say Bob Lee though, I would take this down until it's verified in the article itself.
- sdflkjawet 4y ago[flagged]
- sergiotapia 4y ago[flagged]
- KerrAvon 4y ago[flagged]
- _9hey 4y agoI doubt right wingers are forcing anything in San Francisco
- latency-guy2 4y ago> Don't pin this on Democrats Now I've heard it all, a city that has been 75%+ leaning heavily in one direction is somehow overrun by right wingers.
- happytoexplain 4y agoI don't agree with the parent broadly, but note that in America, a political party's numbers don't even need to be in the same universe as "overrunning" to hobble the other party's endeavors.
- latency-guy2 4y agoI don't think this is a point worth making in a city that is so solidly blue that you'd mistake it for the color of the ocean they're going to fall into in 100 years.
- afavour 4y agoIf you’re outside of a situation looking in and wondering why people aren’t voting the way you think they should it almost certainly means you’re misreading the situation.
- sergiotapia 4y ago
- _9hey 4y ago[flagged]
- moose_man 4y agoWhen a single person can kill 17 people and injure 17 more (Parkland shooting) in a knife rampage you can make this comment.
- _9hey 4y agothey certainly can, as well as with a vehicle. The problem is the user not the tool
- moose_man 4y agoI have yet to see a knife rampage in the US get that bad, correct me if I'm wrong. Let's up it to the Las Vegas shooting 2017 - killing 60 people and wounding at least 413. Also in the US I haven't seen a single person in a car attack that did that much havoc.
- _9hey 4y ago[flagged]
- happytoexplain 4y agoThe utility of airplanes outweighs the utility of civilian firearms designed for assault/defense, or the two are at the very least incomparable. I don't believe that you don't believe this.
- _9hey 4y agoRegardless, the tool isn't the problem.
- moose_man 4y ago
- MuffinFlavored 4y agoany reason to believe it was targeted/burglary or just random/senseless?
- rdl 4y agoI would be shocked if it were anything but random/senseless (or opportunistic robbery), happening on the street at 0230 in SoMA. This police request for information appears to be related. https://twitter.com/sfvas/status/1643328384234315777 https://twitter.com/sfvas/status/1643328384234315777
- sdflkjawet 4y ago[flagged]
- sdflkjawet 4y ago[flagged]
- robswc 4y agoReally hits close to home now… its always “someone else” until its not.
- ethicalsmacker 4y agoSounds like SF to me. It has never been "nice". I was commuting to and from work there for over a year back in ~2015 and it was hell then. I interviewed around 2017 in SF and it was so bad I didn't dare walk back to the station (caught an Uber instead). It's a terrible place.
- robswc 4y agoI feel like at least ~10 years ago you could justify it. At any rate, I think its safe to say the best days are behind.
- etrautmann 4y agoThat’s ridiculous. I lived there 2014-2019 and it was delightful. Certainly many bad problems that weren’t getting fixed but ray to day life for most people wasn’t anything like the horror show it’s made out to be.
- ethicalsmacker 4y agoI didn't enjoy stepping over human feces when walking down the street every day, carefully dodging used needles on the sidewalks or watching homeless people piss or shit in front of Starbucks at ~11AM but to each their own.
- azinman2 4y agoI’ve lived in SF for 11 years now and have yet to see human feces. This isn’t ubiquitous.
- friend_and_foe 4y agoYou've lived there a long time. Are there places where you know you would probably see feces? If so, how do you manage to avoid them?
- hechtoid 4y ago
- reactspa 4y ago[flagged]
- anukin 4y agoThis is funny.
- reactspa 4y agoThen upvote it please.
- dang 4y agoWe've banned this account for repeatedly posting nationalistic and religious flamewar comments and ignoring our request to stop. Not cool. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- Beaver117 4y agoTargeted? Are people in SF attacking rich startup founders now?
- jbverschoor 4y agoCould've easily been someone with a frozen CashApp account.
- DangitBobby 4y agoVery strange title, given that it's not at all verified by the contents of the article. I guess I'll have to flag this one, maybe if it's verified someone can provide a different source for the submission? Edit: looks legit based on other new comments.
- hn_throwaway_99 4y agoSomeone else confirmed it in the comments below. Still, though, these comments here are an absolute dumpster fire, and until there is more information, I don't think stories like this produce any sort of insightful/curious discussion, so thanks for flagging.
- DangitBobby 4y agoIt was verified in the comments but the only source was a tweet which has since been deleted. I want to assume people are telling the truth but I could see this being one of those "pranks" where we find out what people are willing to believe without proof.
- hn_throwaway_99 4y agoI saw the tweet before it was deleted, and if you search for crazybob on Twitter you can find other tweets by users who clearly knew him that he died.
- AlchemistCamp 4y agoIt’s corroborated by one of his friends on Twitter and you can also see an Open Graph image from the article before it removed his name: https://twitter.com/jakeshieldsajj/status/1643448819173195776 https://twitter.com/jakeshieldsajj/status/164344881917319577...
- akarve 4y agoJack Dorsey is corroborating it on nostr npub1sg6plzptd64u62a878hep2kev88swjh3tw00gjsfl8f237lmu63q0uf63m
- fosk 4y agoSan Francisco has the notion that drugged up people out of their mind have the ability and the right to live in a civilized society.. Rule by common sense, not ideology.
- happytoexplain 4y agoBoth sides of the SF topic are absolutely poisoned by ideology. It's a borderline un-discussable topic on the internet at this point, even on HN.
- the_third_wave 4y ago[flagged]
- hindsightbias 4y ago[flagged]
- lmaoge 4y agobruh that is not the other side, the other side is not giving drug addicts, resources to do more drugs
- junofan 4y agoThe other side is not wanting to clean human shit from the steps to my door every week. Hardly an ideology.
- happytoexplain 4y agoJust the normal bullshit you get with any political argument (cherry-picking, dishonesty, etc), but particularly exaggerated. The subset of people I'm referring to are not interested in fixing the problem - only in using it as evidence of how justified their hatred for their political enemies is. This is obvious - I'm not referring to something subtle or defending the SF government.
- thedogeye 4y agoHow do we know it was Bob?
- Mandatum 4y agoI don't know why anyone would live in that city. Unless you're being bussed directly to a campus from out of area, it's an insane place to work, let alone live. Understaffed, under-resourced and under-appreciated.
- robswc 4y agoand ironically, WFH will only make things worse. I don’t “hate” the city but have no idea why anyone would start a business there in 2023.
- jossclimb 4y agoNot to mention overly expensive. We just bootstrapped a remote first company, hiring people from all over the world, some are in rural areas others are in cities. If we grew to level that we need an engineering HQ, it will be in a European country.
- ethicalsmacker 4y agoEven then it's not worth it. When I was commuting to and from the city for work there would be 1-2 suicide attempts (or successes) every month and train delays for hours. I don't imagine that got any better after Covid...
- ceelee 4y agothis is total and complete lie
- throwawayohio 4y agoYou'll be shocked to learn there's more to sf than soma and the pier. Visit sometime.
- sulam 4y agoMy office before I went fully remote is literally at that corner. Good luck getting me to go back to the office.
- pixel_tracing 4y agoI live around that corner. What the hell…
- subsistence234 4y agohttps://robkhenderson.substack.com/p/status-symbols-and-the-struggle-for https://robkhenderson.substack.com/p/status-symbols-and-the-... usually only the lower classes suffer for our luxury beliefs. this is an exception.
- eternalban 4y agoGreat article, thanks for sharing. "Elites decided they were vulgar, and during the reign of France’s Louis XIV, court chefs banned sugar and spice from all meals except for desserts." And it was right in HN a while back that someone was poopooing non-European cuisine's use of spices as "a means to cover up subpar ingredients". Turns out that at least in Europe it had nothing to do with subpar ingredients.
- subsistence234 4y agoboth may be true, and seasoning preferences are a boring topic, and not the point of the article.
- akokanka 4y ago[flagged]
- sgammon 4y agowhat in the f*ck?! man this is just so sad :(
- ilrwbwrkhv 4y ago[flagged]
- farmaway 4y ago[flagged]
- mangosteenjuice 4y agoI believe it was flagged because the deceased's family does not want the name publicly known.
- farmaway 4y agoThat is interesting speculation. In any case, the victim's name is now a matter of public record: https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/fatal-stabbing-bob-lee-mobile-coin-san-francisco-main-street-rincon-hill/ https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/fatal-stabbing-bob...
- stefantalpalaru 4y ago[dead]
- happytoexplain 4y agoI didn't flag it, but if you read the comments here, there is confusion about whether it's even him (apparently the identity was only even mentioned in a now-deleted comment on the article), and there's also the usual amount of posts about SF that are just using the topic as an excuse to express partisan anger. Both are reasonable reasons to flag. If you jump to conspiratorial sarcasm so quickly, that contributes to the problem.
- farmaway 4y agoIt's not a conspiracy theory. It's a dynamic I've seen in play out on the front page before, on many occasions, in real-time.
- dang 4y agoThe karma threshold for flags is only 30. High karma users don't have any special voting or flagging power. Edit: It looks like your account has been using HN primarily, if not exclusively, for political and ideological battle. That's not allowed here, regardless of what you're battling for or against—it's not what this site is for, and it destroys what it is for. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and use this site as intended going forward, we'd appreciate it.
- NickSingh 4y agoHate to see this – wish the SF politicians AND voter-base took crime more seriously.
- teej 4y agoDid I miss the vouch window for this? I don’t think it should be flagged.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- arroz 4y agoPeople here saying SF is dangerous, the homicide rate is less than 3 per 100k people. I wouldn’t call it dangerous by any means. Shit happens.
- mansion7 4y agoEspecially in the streets, sidewalks, and stoops of San Francisco!
- fred123 4y agoI’d consider that dangerous when you compare it to the ~10x lower rate in Western Europe
- dentalperson 4y agoWhere did you get that 3 per 100k from? In each of the last 2 years there were 55 homicides in SF from what I can tell. Maybe you're thinking of New York, which is half of SF's rate? https://sfist.com/2023/01/03/sf-sees-exact-same-number-of-homicides-in-2022-as-previous-year-while-burglaries-are-down/ https://sfist.com/2023/01/03/sf-sees-exact-same-number-of-ho... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_crime_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b...
- Hoyadonis 4y agoThe FBI's Uniform Crime Reports (second link) contains statistics from 2019. However, it seems to be the most recent edition. I have no idea if or where the 2020-2022 ones exist. If someome could point me to them or explain why they don't exist, I'd appreciate it.
- maersk 4y agoThis sfgate article does not identify the person killed. Where did "Bob Lee" come from?
- deminature 4y agoSee https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35449473 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35449473
- zamnos 4y agohttps://www.linkedin.com/in/crazybob/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/crazybob/ He was Chief Product Officer at MobileCoin. Hopefully we learn who stabbed him, and why. 43 is just way too young. Thoughts go out to his wife. He was instrumental in creating Android. Whatever you may think of it today, we wouldn't have it if it weren't for him.
- BigCryo 4y agoSan Fran is filled with homeless schizophrenics... I would bet on one of them having killed him... Some of the mentally ill in the large cities are also addicted to meth or fentanyl
- jahsome 4y agoBaseless speculation is worth nothing. San Fran is also full of diabetics. Maybe they were trying to steal his pancreas.
- jahsome 4y agoPrimary suspect is a techie: https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/bob-lee-san-francisco-arrest-17895071.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/bob-lee-san-francisco...
- zamnos 4y agoPlease don't do this here. A man has died, leaving family and friends, and an operating system (Android), and CashApp, among other things. Whatever you may feel about San Francisco, could you do it somewhere else please?
- bmau5 4y agoThis is so tragic. I can only hope this helps spur action to curb crime in the city. RIP Bob :(
- jeswin 4y ago> spur action to curb crime in the city If crime is increasing in large US cities (as a trend), there'll be a lack of will in the media to write a story about it.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- kortilla 4y agoAlready flagged. This topic is radioactive because it gets close to blaming murder on political decisions.
- rvz 4y agoIt is related to tech. This topic couldn't be more relevant. SF has always been a known shit hole anyway and it has never been safe for techies.
- tapatio 4y agoSF politicians now have blood on their hands, question is, will they do anything about it?
- g42gregory 4y agoThey move around surrounded by the bodyguards. Why would they care?
- corbulo 4y agoNow?
- tapatio 4y agoI guess they always have, but now it’s fresh techie blood.
- seahawks78 4y agoRIP Bob Lee! I was highly inpired by some of your Java talks in Youtube and other places. Aside from that alas! what have things come down to in San Francisco? It has become an utter lawless city.
- dredmorbius 4y agoCBS Bay Area has a story: <https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/fatal-stabbing-bob-lee-mobile-coin-san-francisco-main-street-rincon-hill/ https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/fatal-stabbing-bob...> (Presently in the New queue on HN.)
- Bulean92 4y ago[flagged]
- asdfman123 4y ago[flagged]
- vpribish 4y agodon't be this way. pouring conspiracy nonsense onto a tragedy is gross
- asdfman123 4y agoHe was killed by a random person for unknown reasons. Most murders don’t happen that way. Everyone else is saying homelessness and drugs: why is that narrative better?
- jen20 4y agoBecause it fits the reality of that neighbourhood, vs being baseless conspiracy theory.
- atarian 4y agoNo, it does not fit that neighborhood at all. Plus, this wasn't some stray bullet from a shooting, this person was stabbed multiple times to death.
- jen20 4y agoIndeed: crossfire from a shooting would not fit the neighbourhood. Being attacked by someone with a knife definitely would, unless I've been staying in a different SOMA this last few years.
- asveikau 4y agoThe east side of SOMA is a lot quieter than the west side. Main Street is pretty tame. This did happen late at night... I would expect the victim and the assailant were the only two people around. Or close to that. It's pretty damn quiet in that part. IIRC there are ~two apartment/condo buildings on that block and that's it.
- dmode 4y agoThis is sad news, but as much as I am a critic of SF’s policies around homelessness and drugs, it is not a dangerous city that someone will get murdered. SF has one of the lowest homicide rates of big cities. For some perspective, Oakland has half the population of SF and almost 3x the murder rate https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/pictures/murder-map-deadliest-u-s-cities/ https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/pictures/murder-map-deadliest-u-...
- corbulo 4y agoHow is this a comment on...this...article...what even
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- dmode 4y agoI am responding to most other comments on this post where people seems to spew their personal agenda about a city
- farmaway 4y ago>as much as I am a critic of SF’s policies around homelessness and drugs, it is not a dangerous city that someone will get murdered. If you read the article, you'll find that SF is a dangerous city in which someone was just senselessly murdered.
- k3llynan 4y ago[dead]
- tomatotime 4y agoSF has gotten so sketchy, sucks what it once was.
- tomandrews88 4y agoFunny how people try so hard to show/prove/argue that SF is safe. If it was, these discussions wouldn’t exist. You won’t see these threads about Zurich, just saying.
- EdwardDiego 4y agoI'm pretty sure you would see these threads about Zürich if you were in a net community that has a substantial proportion of members living in or near Zürich.
- tomandrews88 4y agoI spend a lot of time in Zurich, and I’m in tech. Lotta googlers there. I haven’t seen any discussions like this about Zurich yet. When someone says Zurich is quite safe people nod and move on. It’s not news and it’s not controversial.
- EdwardDiego 4y agoHave you accounted for all confounding factors though? From my experiences of Germany, their news cycle isn't as hype-driven as the US's, I imagine Switzerland is even more restrained.
- Kenji 4y ago[dead]
- ben_w 4y agoI tried looking up comparative crime rates; closest I could find was that for homicide, SF is 5 times worse per capita than Switzerland. For a sense of scale for anyone who hasn't been, Switzerland has tax funded drinkable water fountains basically everywhere, and (if you will excuse the surprising conjunction) rolls of free bags for dog poo mounted on the dog poo bins which are also basically everywhere.
- EdwardDiego 4y ago
- martin_a 4y agoCan someone very briefly wrap this whole "SF is broken"-situation up for somebody from Europe? I only ever read that it's "because of the policies" and there are lots of rather disturbing videos about SF making its rounds on YouTube. But what exactly happened? Did they just remove all the police? Did they gave out free drugs to everybody? I'm not interested in blaming political parties, I just want to get a quick grasp of what exactly has happened.
- bestbuyer__ 4y ago[flagged]
- tomandrews88 4y ago> I just want to get a quick grasp of what exactly has happened TLDR: there are far fewer consequences for crime now in large cities like SF, NY, LA. The results are as expected.
- gwd 4y agoI think GP was looking for at least a bit more context. How did it come to pass that there are fewer consequences for crime in SF?
- revelio 4y agoThe prevailing world view of SF and that part of California in general states that the root cause of crime is society at large, and not so much the individual criminal. In this world view a criminal is to be pitied and improved or perhaps just left alone rather than victimized by the state, not locked up. Due to the absolute dominance of voters with this mentality, and the practice of electing prosecutorial positions that in other parts of the world would be professional appointees, they have repeatedly ended up with prosecutors that ran on a campaign of refusing to prosecute. This isn't specific to SF, it can also be seen in LA and New York. In fact one of the criticisms levelled at the Trump inditement is that the prosecutor in question campaigned specifically on prosecuting Trump (for whatever) and has now upgraded what would normally be a misdemeanor, whilst simultaneously downgrading many other types of crime. In other words: politics, ideology, the usual suspects.
- jack_riminton 4y agoIt seems most likely that this is a homeless/drugged up person related but remember it could also be an altercation with someone he knew
- jack_riminton 4y agoUpdate: It was someone he knew https://missionlocal.org/2023/04/bob-lee-killing-arrest-made-san-francisco/ https://missionlocal.org/2023/04/bob-lee-killing-arrest-made...
- ronanyeah 4y agoAmericans clearly have very low expectations for their standard of living. As demonstrated by the amount of insane 'actually the murder rate isn't that bad' comments in this thread.
- RGamma 4y agoThe decades of internal and self-violence are quickly forgotten when something happens to a tech bro. I simply can't take that country seriously anymore...
- astrange 4y agoEvery city in America is so much incredibly safer than it was in 1990 that nobody old enough to remember that is going to be bothered by much of anything. (That is, if you think now's bad, you should've seen it then.)
- ronanyeah 4y ago'actually the murder rate isn't that bad'
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y agoBad is relative. Bad compared to perfect European utopias, yes. Bad compared to the same city 30-40 years ago, no.
- bombcar 4y agoNobody really cares about the murder rate. What they care about is being murdered. A city where gangs are killing each other off but never bother normal people will feel much safer than a city where a comparatively few people are killed but it’s from the greater pool of everyone.
- kelnos 4y agoJust because something used to be so much worse, it doesn't mean that the current state is good.
- kenneth 4y agoI find it shocking that anyone still chooses to live in this broken city. I left >4 years ago and am never coming back. It's unfixable. Let's move the tech industry somewhere that isn't rotten to the core.
- rfwhyte 4y ago[flagged]
- chewz 4y ago> The ONLY thing that's ever really going to fix most of the problems in the world today is MASSIVE global reduction in wealth / income inequality That's just happening. One robbery at a time... All these robberies happening at once are called revolution...
- cyrialize 4y agoI see this mentioned often when people move to SF or other large cities and then complain about a lack of culture. The people who brought culture into a city and were part of the city for a while end up leaving due to prices being driven high because of the tech industry (or really anything that causes huge price spikes). Cities become known for their people and their culture. If nothing is done to keep those people in the city, then no wonder this complaint pops up.
- arpowers 4y agoThis is the idealist and ignorant perspective that created the problem. The woke mind virus. Meritocracy is critical. Someone has to do the actual work.
- atdrummond 4y agoNothing will change. I was attacked in Christmas ‘21 in the Tenderloin, right after walking out of the KFC/Taco Bell on Eddy. Two cop cars drove by me and did nothing. It was only due to an ambulance finishing a run at Sutter and spotting me that I didn’t bleed out on the suitcase. I have video, proof of damages physical and financial, eyewitnesses and the info of the men who attacked me. SFPD will not arrest them because Boudin refused to prosecute. New DA has not gotten back to me despite repeated attempts. I wanted to build a life and have my family in SF, to contribute and make it the city I believe it to be, but I refuse to put people I love in that situation. I’ve left for Estonia and couldn’t be happier.
- nisegami 4y agoI wonder if they'd have declined to prosecute if you'd have shot your attackers.
- quantified 4y agoBoudin specifically declared in your case he would not prosecute? Did he leave a record of his reason? Or did the SFPD just say he would? SFPD went on holiday to make him look bad, so the difference is important.
- atdrummond 4y agoI should be clear it was his office (I’ve never talked to the man), not him, where I encountered the most trouble. SFPD at least feigned caring about my situation but repeatedly pleaded their hands were tied, that they could arrest but the men would end up back on the street in days. The new DA’s office has made a lot of promises but there’s been no substantial progress. Their continued increasing rates of prosecutions on violent crimes gives me a bit more hope that they’re truly battling through an immense backlog - but I’ve simply run out of patience and energy to fight the system in order to compel them to simply do their jobs.
- quantified 4y agoI think the case against Boudin would be made if the police made the arrests and the DA did in fact refuse to prosecute. Maybe there would have been that case. What trouble did the DA's office give you?
- mjfl 4y agoDetriot was once the richest city per capita in the US, in the 1950s. It is now the second poorest city per capita in the US, an actual wasteland. SF seems to be headed in a similar direction. It's because the people that live there simply don't live on this planet - they don't have to. It is so wealthy that there's no penalty for being delusional. Until it's too late of course. And that's when the weight of fate punches you 6 ft under the ground, and you never recover.
- grumple 4y agoI didn't realize how wealthy Detroit was. It really highlights how far the fall was, and that any city can experience this collapse.
- bombcar 4y agoMuch of it was people leaving Detroit city proper and moving into the suburbs around it which are technically separate independent cities. The metro area still went vastly downhill and the manufacturing never recovered (many of the US car manufacturers moved elsewhere).
- alephnerd 4y agoIt's been similar in the Bay Area since the 70s-80s. A common joke here in SF is "What's present are you getting your 4 year old? A house in Marin/Walnut Creek". Also if we're being honest, SF was never the tech hub of the Bay Area - it was always Santa Clara County. Before the 2010s, the only major software company here in SF was probably Salesforce and that's because Benioff is a townie.
- TheRealDunkirk 4y agoTwenty-five years ago, my nice, quiet, little Fortune 250 was "merged" with another Fortune 250 called Meritor, which subsequently went full-corporate-raider on my company, and pillaged it until all that was left was the carcass, which they then sold to PE. In the 3 years that they put on their show, I would occasionally work at a place they had renovated in downtown Detroit. It was a model turnaround! The city is recovering! The CEO, Larry Fuckin Yost(1), won "CEO of the year" from... someone or something. And, yeah, it was nice, but they had to put 12' fencing around it, and I was told not to leave the property on foot. Across the street were a row of derelict houses. On my first visit, I saw a semi tractor parked on the street in front of them. I asked why he would stop there, on the street, in front of those houses, and was told that the driver was likely getting a blowjob from a crack whore. I guess little has changed in the decades since. 1) I'm guessing at his middle name.
- jwmoz 4y agoLondon sometimes feels bad but then I read stories on SF..
- mrgill 4y agoAt least the weather is good in SF and.. you make 3-6x more money.
- louwrentius 4y agoThat’s the only this that really matters: making good dough. Everything and - most of all everyone - else can get ffed. As long as I get my share I don’t care /s
- danjac 4y agoIf you want to make money so that you can save up a nice nest egg rather than be broke at the end of every month, London is probably the worst place to move to, unless you are working in the City or some other very high paid job, or you are lucky to have a permanent line of credit from the Bank of Mum and Dad. And not only will you be broke, you'll be living in a damp hovel shared with strangers. Kind of like being a student, but with all the responsibilities of having a job.
- louwrentius 4y agoWhy you are talking about Londen all of a sudden is beyond me, but might be some bias. But it seems that I struck a nerve: that ‘nest egg’ is at the detriment to other people, exactly my point. The homeless pay the price for your nest egg. The disdain for poor people is dripping from your reply. Yet you have much more in common with the homeless than with the people who pay you. You will be used and discarded as we see happening and who knows where you will end up…
- danjac 4y agoUm, where did I show disdain for the homeless? On the contrary, I pointed out that London has become unaffordable for all but the rich. One might say the same of San Francisco and other cities with gross wealth disparities and sky-high rents. A "nest egg" means "having a bit saved up" so one might have some economic security. Again, what does that have to do with the homeless?
- hoseja 4y ago[flagged]
- lvl102 4y ago[flagged]
- roflyear 4y agoHow is that the problem?
- lvl102 4y agoCorrect me if I am wrong but they are giving money to the homeless in SF. This is attracting a lot of homeless people into the city. In fact, based on recent interviews, I know people from as far as Boston are making their ways to SF freighthopping.
- amrocha 4y agoMate, they're not literally handing out money.
- reducesuffering 4y agoMate, there are 100 people panhandling in SF right now, literally being given money.
- amrocha 4y agoAre city officials handing out money to them? Because that's what was claimed. Not that there are people asking for money.
- reducesuffering 4y agoNowhere was it claimed city officials or city government.
- amrocha 4y ago
- bentt 4y ago<in Charlie Sheen’s Ferris Bueller character voice> “drugs”
- harriet1 4y ago[dead]
- kodisha 4y agoI am very spoiled by living in one of the European capitals. It's super safe here, and it's normal thing to see young females taking a dog out for a walk in 22-02h. I visit SF at least once a year, and default to my learned habit of walking alone, and later at night. No more.
- isaacremuant 4y agoI never understand why people feel like they can make such generalizing statements as "One of the European capitals". Europe is not a monolith. Different areas also have different problems. It's like the whole talk about "walkable cities" or healthcare. Everything is frame from a US perspective and simplified to an absurd level so that no contextual criticism is possible without descending into weird political tribalism and an apples to oranges comparison between an entire continent and a country.
- bestcoder69 4y agoOK then make it apples to apples and compare crime rates in your preferred manner? It’s hard to make the US look good no matter what grouping or aggregation or whatever you choose. There’s a clear difference in policies and their downstream effects (eg poverty rate) between the US and a random European city you select by throwing a dart at a map. Not all, but do a few trials and pretend not to see a pattern. e: Also, sorry, it's ridiculous to say the US looks to Europe too much when discussing policy. This almost never happens, and when it does it's from the left, who has 0 actual influence. Every policy discussion should begin by talking about prior art & what we've observed about the effectiveness of policies as implemented elsewhere. It'll never show causality, but it'll start the discussion off with some possible causal links to explore w/ our own policy experiments!
- aqme28 4y agoBecause it doesn't matter which European capital. No country in western Europe has a higher homicide rate than the US.
- drstewart 4y ago
- bwb 4y agowow this is a sad day, how fucked up :(
- LegNeato 4y agoMy family has lived in SF since the 1800s. I recently moved because it has gotten so bad. I hate what the government has done to my city.
- brtkdotse 4y agoWhat has the government done to your city?
- jackmott 4y ago[dead]
- junofan 4y agoDownvoting for flame bait. Come on.
- lizardking 4y agoIt’s a fair question
- swasheck 4y agoi had the same question. i believe it to be a legitimate inquiry, as someone with low exposure to the politics and results of the area.
- iLoveOncall 4y agoMy understanding from a European that doesn't follow the news very much is that they did defund the police and what everyone knew would happen happened.
- swasheck 4y agoexcept they walked that back last year.
- kdkdk 4y ago
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- petodo 4y ago[flagged]
- cwxm 4y ago[flagged]
- triggerwarn 4y ago[flagged]
- striking 4y agoSure, here's one: https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=cross%20the%20street https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=cross%20the%... Hopefully you're just unfamiliar with the term
- triggerwarn 4y ago[flagged]
- dang 4y agoWe've banned this account for repeatedly posting flamewar comments and ignoring our request to stop. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll use the site as intended in the future: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
- petodo 4y agojust plain lying, you had objection maybe once long time ago if ever, I don't even remember it if you are transparent show us those requests moderation on this site really went downhill over years with shadowbans when your are unable to submit even link to BBC and HN lying you are posting too fast while this limit disappears immediately when you post comment
- tlogan 4y agoSadly the situation in SF will continue to deteriorate. Corruption in city gov is astonishing.
- Mdubrov 4y agoHow many ex-CTOs of square have to die for it to be obvious that having thousands of junkies slowly decaying on the street in an orgy of madness and drugs might be a bad idea? Not that this should matter, nobody deserves to be stabbed… but I knew Bob personally btw and he was a great guy.
- igetspam 4y agoI knew crazybob too. Met him his 20s at Google. Haven't chatted with him in years but the Bob I knew would have have your intro to be offensive and in poor taste.
- game_the0ry 4y ago> A friend who was planning to meet Lee in Miami this weekend told The Standard that Lee had been in San Francisco on business, had stayed an extra day and was killed on that day. I am genuinely curious to know how SF residents feel about this.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- lancesells 4y agoNot to diminish this tragedy but I believe murders are close to an all-time low in the city.
- zamnos 4y agoThe sfgate article mentions that there were 10 murders by this point last year, compared to 12 this year. https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/mill-valley-man-killed-sf-stabbing-17878809.php https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/mill-valley-man-kille...
- tlogan 4y agoFunny stat. Majority of murders happen in family. The recent FBI stat says that family members were responsible for 43% of them. Gangs are responsible for about 30%. Now since large number of families moved out from SF, and there are more no big local gangs (since there are no families) you have about 40% more random homicides. And these random ones are the worse and the most scary ones.
- dsfyu404ed 4y agoWhen crime stats say "gangs" they're not just talking about a street gang with a name, list of members, defined territory and stuff like that. They're also talking about people who engage in business that is not state sanctioned and therefore have to settle disputes with their own violence instead of getting a court to threaten state violence on their behalf. One part time drug dealer rounding up a couple buddies and putting a bullet in a guy who ripped him off will show up as and makes up a huge chunk of what's considered "gang violence" in these stats. When comparing cities it's useful to differentiate between random crime and crime where the parties to know each other.
- codeddesign 4y ago[flagged]
- civilized 4y agoI accompanied my wife to a conference in SF a few years ago. While walking along Market Street, returning to our hotel from picking up food for the kids, one of those dishevelled guys with big coats ran at me full tilt. I was forced to run across the middle of the street into traffic to get away from him. He pursued me, pulling out a gun and pointing it at me midway across the street. After I got across the street he gave up and went back to his side. I think the gun was probably a toy, but the only reason I think that is because he didn't fire it. It was small, but gunmetal colored and realistic. Now, I feel like I could have just as easily been Bob Lee, and my kids could have just as easily lost their father. For nothing more than flying in for a weekend and walking along a main thoroughfare. It seems like this story is completely unremarkable in SF. Nobody in the vicinity seemed to care what was happening to me. It was obvious there was no point in calling 911 to report this. Apparently it's just normal that you take your life into your hands walking along Market Street, and some resident mentally ill guy might decide to end you because he doesn't like your face.
- bombcar 4y agoI’ve often wondered if the above is part of the reason we have so many tech delivery companies - hire someone else to take the risk for that burger for you.
- cdolan 4y agoWow. Had not thought of that. I think you may be correct! Feels right out of black mirror/etc
- bombcar 4y agoI'm sure that you can even argue it's a win/win! The poor doordasher probably has encountered situations multiple times a month, and can recognize them and avoid them, whereas the untrained rich person may not have the same "street smarts". And you could get dark real quick when you realize that for many a dead doordasher is a statistic, but a dead rich man is a tragedy. (Even if all above is true, it still would sicken me)
- 4y ago
- sam_goody 4y ago[flagged]
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- alephnerd 4y agoMy condolences to Bob's family. I hope this finally gets SF city government to get it's shit together. Ik the VC commmunity is pretty closely knit here but always seemed to concentrate on national politics. Maybe they'll now pressure City govt to finally start maintaining quality of life Edit: Jesus, this happened right in Rincon Hill. This is SF's equivalent of Murray Hill. Yea shit needs to be fixed.
- philwelch 4y agoIt seems to me that SF city government has been openly hostile to tech this entire time. If they don’t care about impoverished minorities being murdered by violent criminals, what makes you think they would care any more about tech executives?
- alephnerd 4y agoThe tech hostility issue was surrounding tech workers moving to the Mission District (a formerly working class Latino neighborhood that had a bunch of white bohemian alternative types). In city politics, a handful of major tech moguls have always been active. Ron Conway and Mark Benioff have both historically been massive players in SF politics and have been supporting more moderate Mayoral candidates for some time, but the SF Board of Supervisors tends to filled only with NIMBY activists and real estate owners (Dean Preston, Aaron Peskin, Hillary Ronen). Now that someone who is Seacliff adjacent is dead, they'll finally do something. I used to live in a Tenderloin adjacent neighborhood and my street literally reverted to mob justice after the riots because it was filled with working class undocumented immigrants+asylum seekers who were targeted and Tenderloin PD's hiring basically collapsed (on that note - if you're trying to stick up someone, don't stick up someone who fought in the Yemen Civil War and the Afghan Civil War. A couple people learnt their lesson in that neighborhood from what I heard at the local mosque). While those riots went on, the police were guarding Seacliff, Russian Hill, and PacHeights. And it's those same people who's kids end up in SF progressive politics and setting up organizations that push these kinds of policies. Btw, if anyone downvotes me thinking I'm some GOP nut - I'm not. My politics lean moderate Dem and I have worked in the moderate Dem space for years. That said, the SF Dems are entirely out of touch. It's a level of machine politics that makes Chicago look competent (and they've had actual Supes get arrested for arms trafficking, but then again so did we in 2012).
- newbie578 4y agoSorry to hear this, I do however wish to hear if this is finally going to put some pressure on the government to change some things? Already, I have friends in Europe who lived and visited SF and had some troublesome stories. I don't know if people realize, but stuff like this will reject people from the Valley and look for other places for entrepreneurship..
- zamnos 4y agohttps://www.linkedin.com/in/crazybob/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/crazybob/ He was Chief Product Officer at MobileCoin. Hopefully we learn who stabbed him, and why. 43 is just way too young. Thoughts go out to his wife. He was instrumental in creating Android. Whatever you may think of it today, we wouldn't have it if it weren't for him.
- petodo 4y ago[flagged]
- jebronie 4y ago[flagged]
- cylinder 4y agoThere’s lots of shit there, but it’s not in a hole, unfortunately. It just sits there right on the pavement.
- Trias11 4y ago[flagged]
- omeysalvi 4y agoVery sad news indeed. It does go to show that even the rich and powerful are not immune to the chaos in this world.
- lupire 4y agoSo much pervasive surveillance, but no video evidence of a violent crime committed (presumably) on a public street.
- alephnerd 4y agoSF City Supervisors banned Video Surveillance by SFPD. This was Supported and pushed by our local ACLU chapter. Fuck em.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- yosefjaved1 4y agoWow. RIP Bob Lee. He died at Harrison and Main st. That area is tame compared to the mission, tenderloin, and other spots in SOMA. Of all places, I would never have guessed a stabbing would occur there but I haven't been in the area since 2020. Just a give a sense of the place, the area has a lot of apartments and skyrises. A friend of mine lived two blocks away at the jasper building. We would walk around there at night with his dog and never really saw anybody else in the area past midnight. My company's headquarters was also a few blocks away directly across the street from the Salesforce park. Several major tech companies and organizations had satellite offices and/or headquarters in the area.
- oski 4y agoWhile that area is usually pretty quiet, it is pretty close to the on-ramp to the Bay Bridge. This is purely speculation, but it is plausible that the crime was perpetrated by someone from the East Bay looking for a quick getaway.
- badcppdev 4y agoI've never been to SF. Never met Bob and have barely any personal experience with crime at all. And I'm fairly high on the bleeding heart liberal scale but my opinion looking at the crime stats for the US (and other western countries) is that you get the society that you are willing to pay for. When teachers, social workers, doctors, police, justice systems and prisons cannot teach, help, cure, protect, judge, punish, and rehabilitate people who are not following the laws because there aren't enough of them and they have insufficient resources then this is what you get. There are people out there who are unintelligent, vulnerable, mentally ill, and occasionally just sociopathic. You need a comprehensive system to try and help those people and protect the rest of society from them. We've (across the western world) have decided to not put our tax dollars into solving these problems. Just my 2 cents worth. RIP Mr Lee.
- vanilla_nut 4y agoAgreed that we're not using our tax dollars effectively to help people in SF. But SF (and CA in general) have some of the highest tax burdens per citizen in the entire nation -- very similar to many European nations. We should emphasize that taxes provide more than enough money to make a functional city, but some combination of internal corruption or mismanagement is preventing those dollars from effectively helping those in need.
- badcppdev 4y agoWell you've made an assertion that the there is more than enough money but not provided evidence. My understanding is that a lot of the homeless people in SF come from elsewhere so if that's true then a straight comparison of taxation might not be valid. But this is a very very big topic so I'll just point out that actually society is not taking care of the people who need it anywhere in the US or the western world. This is a choice that people make.
- vanilla_nut 4y agoVery true, especially on a worldwide scale: we could allocate resources much more efficiently to take care of a lot of people who are suffering around the whole world. Within the microcosm of SF? I would make the basic argument that SF's population has grown and its tax rate has increased over the past 20 years, yet there are now orders of magnitude more people suffering in the city from high rent, homelessness, and other affordability issues. It's hard to point to any specific numbers but I recall a much nicer city back in 2005, and even as recently as 2015. Of course you're also very correct that no city is an island so there could be a lot of suffering people coming to the city because in SF they can access social programs that aren't available elsewhere.
- joemazerino 4y agoI have commented on SF threads before regarding the violent crime. I don't think we have figured out if this was premeditated or not, but either way, SF is becoming incredibly dangerous. Progressive DA's and a neutered police force are to blame for the rise in violent crime. Many of my friends have taken their remote gigs and left SF in the last 3 years. What's the point in rolling the dice every time you walk outside for some air and to potentially catch an attack or worse? I can't blame them at all for the move.
- short_sells_poo 4y ago[flagged]
- drummojg 4y agoI love this debate and I expect it will go on forever. It boils down to, A: "California's problems are because California is too California!" "B: Nooo, we have not yet begun to California! If we California harder we can solve all the problems!" Submitted with humor and best regards.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- CrackerNews 4y agoCalifornia would be "I got mine, but we can make things more fair for you by lowering your standards and giving you measly benefits so the feudal stratification is okay."
- HPsquared 4y agoPeople are free to leave but it's hard to move in. That's pretty much the opposite of feudal. EDIT: Also no-competes are illegal in CA. Also very anti-feudal. Where's all this feudalism?
- nervousvarun 4y ago
- robertwt7 4y agoThis is crazy, Bob is such an excellent engineer that has contributed so much to the engineering world. I have no words for this. Sf needs to get their shits together, i still can’t believe that the majority of the high income earners stayed home because they’re afraid of the people on the street. I often asked my mates when I visited SF, how come a city so rich has such a basic security issue where people don’t feel safe walking around their own city??
- nemo44x 4y ago[flagged]
- robswc 4y agoI think the chances of getting killed in a random stabbing is low in SF… and this is from someone that really hates going into any city. However, the crime in general… that’s not something one can claim is “cherry picked.” I know of several companies that have stopped letting employees visit SF because it is too expensive to insure. Still though, it’s been said how dangerous SF is becoming in general… and now such a high profile hacker is dead from a random stabbing. Certainly awful optics.
- nemo44x 4y agoSF has a higher murder rate than Sau Paulo, Brazil and they have a "Level 2: Exercise Increased Caution" advisory. We have many cities (Baltimore, Chicago, detroit, New Orleans, Memphis, Milwaukee, Cleveland, etc) that are higher in terms of violence. I think our violent cities should have a Level 2 warning if we want to be consistent.
- NDizzle 4y agoTurns out defunding the police actually has consequences. Who knew?!
- grugagag 4y agoTurns out rising social inequalities and disparities are also part of the problem. Who knew?
- triggerwarn 4y ago[flagged]
- a_shovel 4y agoThe SF police budget does not seem to have been defunded, with a 4.4% increase from 2019 to 2022.
- AbrahamParangi 4y agoFor those of us who consider ourselves liberals, at what point do we have to ask ourselves if decriminalization/restorative justice is actually working? I mean, we obviously want to believe it works- but does it actually? And if, hypothetically, it were counterproductive- what then?
- SamoyedFurFluff 4y agoSmall question: does anyone have any actual numbers about crime in SF and whether or not it is actually more dangerous than other comparable cities (population, wealth, density)? I want to believe the claims of people who’ve been there that is quite dangerous but very few of them are actually giving out numbers to justify this position.
- reustle 4y agohttps://www.neighborhoodscout.com/ca/san-francisco/crime#description https://www.neighborhoodscout.com/ca/san-francisco/crime#des... This has a bit of relevant data
- CTmystery 4y agoIt's a good ask. I have perused the SFPD crime stats and left dissatisfied. If someone can compel this to provide a longer timeframe, I think it would be helpful: https://www.sanfranciscopolice.org/stay-safe/crime-data/crime-dashboard https://www.sanfranciscopolice.org/stay-safe/crime-data/crim... All anecdotal: I believe many, like me, that are claiming the decline in safety are actually living here. I've been here since 2010, FWIW (not saying that is long, but long enough to see changes, IMO). When I first got here, I remember seeing someone shoot up in an alley. I remember a drunk or drugged man smashing his head into the window of a bus. But, against the expectation that I would become assimilated and desensitized over time, I am more shocked now. The last time I went to the TL (six months ago), I was actually scared, and vowed not to return without good reason. I wish I could point to a single thing. Maybe it was the needles strewn, the folks dazed and walking into traffic, the knocked out folks on the sidewalk; it felt lawless. Maybe I'm getting older and scare more easily, that's also a possibility.
- btbuildem 4y agoFrom what I've heard about SF, there is an insane level of inequality there -- abject poverty and homelessness, next to gleaming wealth and SV opulence. For all the "problems" that tech bros solve, it's somehow tragically fitting that the two worlds collide undeniably this way. The city didn't get like this overnight, and the tech culture that it supports has been one of the drivers of the economic divide. Now the bubble is burst at the point of a knife... or is it? Will people see the root of the problem? Or will they just call for more police, more coercion, to double-down on the status quo? You could take this as a call to solve real problems, right there, at home.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- xwdv 4y ago[flagged]
- jfranche 4y agoThis is very sad. On comparing city safety. SF has 1M people and 55 homicides. Jacksonville, FL has 1M and 162. Is there a reason people in the US seem to highlight SF more in situations like this?
- alphabettsy 4y agoThere’s an agenda.
- nemo44x 4y ago[flagged]
- nonethewiser 4y agoSeems likely. At least worth investigating to rule out. Hopefully this is not the case.
- fortran77 4y agoUnfortunately, no "hate crime" staute would cover him.
- ausbah 4y agoliterally incorrect https://www.vox.com/policy/2023/3/18/23644339/hate-crimes-report-rise-in-hate-crimes https://www.vox.com/policy/2023/3/18/23644339/hate-crimes-re...
- throwayyy479087 4y ago[flagged]
- consumer451 4y ago> In fact we’ve seen a rash of hate crimes directed at groups that progressives are antagonistic to by groups progressives champion, lately. Wow, I was entirely unaware of this. Could you please provide some links?
- KoftaBob 4y agoTo those who are going to be curious about crime statistics, it appears that while SF isn't high up in terms of violent crime rates, it is unusually high for robberies (#20) and *very* high when it comes to property crime rates (burglary, theft, etc) where it ranks 4th in the nation. If we think logically about what allows property crimes to remain high in one city vs another, a couple things come to mind: 1. A higher poverty/homelessness rate leading to people resorting to property crimes 2. A higher repeat offender rate if the DA of that city chooses not to prosecute/press charges against many of those who commit that crime For factor #1, this would be remedied by tackling the causes of persistent homelessness with things like Housing First initiatives to house people dealing with those conditions, and to also give them medical assistance since a good chunk of them are dealing with mental illnesses. For factor #2, this seems like it would be a simple case of the DA needing to be more aggressive in prosecuting property crime perpetrators to both deter the act and to keep them off the streets to begin with. The SF DA office is particularly known for being too loose with this, unsurprisingly. I'm by no means a crime expert or a lawyer, but this is what seems like is going on at face value. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_crime_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b...
- throwayyy479087 4y ago[flagged]
- jwineinger 4y agoThis feels like a heartless take; your condolences go to the murderer/city/activists, but not to those who knew and loved the man that actually died? I'm not arguing that the murderer and city don't have big problems, but to call them the "real victims" just feels strange.
- amanj41 4y agoThe parent commenter is being (obnoxiously) sarcastic
- throwayyy479087 4y agoThe fact he believed that was a real opinion is very concerning, and the core of the problem with the modern West Coast. People have become fucking unhinged.
- dang 4y agoCould you please stop posting unsubstantive comments and flamebait? You've unfortunately been doing it repeatedly. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
- KoftaBob 4y agoTo those who are going to be curious about crime statistics, it appears that while SF isn't high up in terms of violent crime rates, it is unusually high for robberies (#20) and *very* high when it comes to property crime rates (burglary, theft, etc) where it ranks 4th in the nation. If we think logically about what allows property crimes to remain high in one city vs another, a couple things come to mind: 1. A higher poverty/homelessness rate leading to people resorting to property crimes 2. A higher repeat offender rate if the DA of that city chooses not to prosecute/press charges against many of those who commit that crime For factor #1, this would be remedied by tackling the causes of persistent homelessness with things like Housing First initiatives to house people dealing with those conditions, and to also give them medical assistance since a good chunk of them are dealing with mental illnesses. For factor #2, this seems like it would be a simple case of the DA needing to be more aggressive in prosecuting property crime perpetrators to both deter the act and to keep them off the streets to begin with. The SF DA office is particularly known for being too loose with this, unsurprisingly. I'm by no means a crime expert or a lawyer, but this is what seems like is going on at face value. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_crime_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b...
- fortran77 4y agoThere's a reason that, while I spend 9 months of the year in Sunnyvale, CA, I never, ever, go to San Francisco.
- labrador 4y agoPeople in big cities get mugged, sometimes violently. This happened in Republican led cities when I was young. It happens in Democratic led cities now. It happens in London. It happens in Moscow. You can have policy differences with the government of San Francisco, but please don't capitalize on this tragic death to advance them. It's exploitive and disrespectful to Bob Lee's family. I know I'm whistling in the wind, but I needed to say it for myself.
- Vervious 4y agoIt’s not every day that a big tech exec gets stabbed and killed. It’s like a bank exec getting mugged in nyc, it just doesn’t happen.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- labrador 4y agoI don't recommend anyone walk alone at 2:30 am in any big city. Get an Uber.
- Vervious 4y agoThat's only because SF isn't safe, esp relative to rent price. I regularly walk alone at 2:30am in nyc in most neighborhoods.
- labrador 4y agoAs we heard all day yesterday, nyc has the most massive and powerful police force in the world, which is understandable since it is a target of terrorists. It also takes an awful lot of money to live there. Must be nice. I dream of living there myself one day, but my time and money have run out.
- Vervious 4y ago
- enono 4y ago[flagged]
- dang 4y agoCould you please stop posting unsubstantive comments and flamebait? It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
- brodouevencode 4y agoHow long before companies start putting moratoriums on travel to SF? We've talked about it on our team w.r.t. conferences and non-direct-business related things.
- Dem_Boys 4y agoCould someone please enlighten me on why we don't treat governing like we do software solutions? When I'm given a task to complete, my first instinct is to find where other developers have done what I'm asked to do and then utilize their wisdom into my own solution which will likely look very similar to theirs. Why do we see such drastically different approaches to solving issues in society and government? Want better education? Step 1: Find a state/city that has great education and study what they did to achieve it Want less crime? Step 1: Mimic a state/city that has successfully reduced crime Seems so simple to me but yet I never hear politicians/people saying things like "Boston has successfully raised their level of education by doing XYZ so we're going to follow those steps here with minor tweaks to best suite our area"
- redleggedfrog 4y agoCrime is a for profit business for the perpetrators, politicians, and law enforcement, and the only victims are, well, the victims. There isn't much profit in peace.
- JetSpiegel 4y agoDidn't SF's mayor's brother murder someone?
- trentnix 4y ago> Could someone please enlighten me on why we don't treat governing like we do software solutions? We do. It’s called “product-market fit” in software. It’s called “elections” in democratic government. The government provides the services and competence its leaders, and consequently its electorate, demands. San Francisco’s electorate demanded what it’s getting. As you can see just from these comments, “the facts” are twisted, distorted, and obfuscated to confirm a preferred narrative. But the faith in the narrative, whichever narrative you hold, never wavers.
- zacharytelschow 4y agoElections don't decide which policies will work, only which will be implemented. It's quite simple to see what worked elsewhere and in the past if people would care to look.
- chmod600 4y agoIf the police and or DA won't protect you for political reasons, that's a pretty good argument that you should be able to defend yourself. It's fundamentally unfair to deny carry permits for decades and then also fail at effective policing. Most murderers have already committed a lot of crimes, sometimes including other murders. If the police are ineffective many won't be known or reported, but I will hazard a guess that the attacker did commit them. In other words, the effective police+DA could have prevented the stabbing and didn't. It sucks that the answer is to shoot criminals rather than prosecute them. But that is what the answer will be in the world of ineffective police+DA after Bruen. And frankly, it's good that the option will be there as a last resort for vulnerable citizens. I know people will suggest all kinds of "better options". But those better options have been known for a long time and nothing has been done. The victims are just a statistic... collateral damage of politics.
- AustinDev 4y agoOut of curiosity, what was your take on firearms 5 years ago? I’m glad to see there are people realizing that in this country the only person responsible for your own safety is yourself. Be careful defending yourself in a city like SF. You’ll likely end up in jail without the right attorneys.
- hotpotamus 4y agoMy take is that if someone is close enough to stab you, you probably aren't going to be able to pull your gun in time to stop them, so it's better just to avoid situations where you might get stabbed.
- AustinDev 4y agoI agree. In any concealed carry class the first thing they teach you is situational awareness and how to avoid a bad situation.
- chmod600 4y agoA gun is not a magical shield of protection, but it gives a fighting chance and they do work at least sometimes. If we are already denying someone an adequate police+DA system, by what argument can we also deny them the means to defend themselves with a firearm? "Avoid situations where you might be stabbed" is not a great answer, either. What was the victim doing to invite stabbing? Should we just evacuate SoMa and leave it to the criminals?
- publius_0xf3 4y ago*
- oski 4y agoLink?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- sleigh-bells 4y agoAssuming that the murderer has lots of priors, why is it so hard for cities to (1) not overpolice minor crimes (i.e. weed) and also (2) take violent crimes seriously and incarcerate anyone who commits X number or X severity of them? Instead every time at least in NYC when you hear about someone killing an elderly Asian, turns out they had like 20+ priors, including some violent misdemeanors, which are often quite serious. No one wants to put people in jail for stealing a loaf of bread (a straw man that often comes out) but if repeat violent offenders keep committing more violent crimes, maybe we actually need to keep them in prison longer? Why are people such bleeding hearts for repeat violent offenders?
- kfrzcode 4y agoI believe the term is "murdered with assault weapon"
- Jackie4Chan 4y ago[flagged]
- vlovich123 4y agoIn this thread everyone blaming homeless and the poor without any context of who the perpetrator is. It’s a big leap from shoplifting to a stabbing/murder. Also consider that even if the shoplifting/car break ins is being committed by the poor, they could be being directed by organized crime which is quite active in the area (look at the high profile heists in downtown that occurred in the past few years). The car break-ins in particular are as I understand it primarily organized crime not the homeless.
- hnburnsy 4y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory
- butt____hugger 4y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory#Criticism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory#Criticis...
- vlovich123 4y agoOh I understand that. The sad part is that the evidence is extremely limited and careful experiments done to empirically validate it have failed with other more plausible alternatives provided (see the criticism section). The most compelling one to me is that the cities that applied this theory and the ones that didn’t saw similar decrease in crime suggesting an overall downward trend that couldn’t be attributed to this theory. That’s basically an A/B test at scale that fails to find anything. Also: > Baltimore criminologist Ralph B. Taylor argues in his book that fixing windows is only a partial and short-term solution. His data supports a materialist view: changes in levels of physical decay, superficial social disorder, and racial composition do not lead to higher crime, but economic decline does. He contends that the example shows that real, long-term reductions in crime require that urban politicians, businesses, and community leaders work together to improve the economic fortunes of residents in high-crime areas. That sounds like the theory has cause and effect reversed and treating the effect does not actually address the underlying cause. If your wood beam is rotting, a fresh coat of paint can help but at some point it will collapse. > In the winter 2006 edition of the University of Chicago Law Review, Bernard Harcourt and Jens Ludwig looked at the later Department of Housing and Urban Development program that rehoused inner-city project tenants in New York into more-orderly neighborhoods.[25] The broken windows theory would suggest that these tenants would commit less crime once moved because of the more stable conditions on the streets. However, Harcourt and Ludwig found that the tenants continued to commit crime at the same rate. Oh look, another controlled A/B experiment that fails to validate anything. > In his 2012 book Uncontrolled: The Surprising Payoff of Trial-and-Error for Business, Politics, and Society, Jim Manzi writes that of the randomized field trials conducted in criminology, only nuisance abatement per broken windows theory has been successfully replicated So the only thing we can link it to is nuisance calls. All that work and hassling for a super minor win. It’s impossible to scientifically prove something but there’s enough holes to indicate that this theory provides an exceedingly poor model for crime. It’s also easy to consider a hypothetical scenario where one person or a small group of people steals all the money in the neighborhood such that everyone is poor and can barely feed themselves, if that. The poor now need to steal and commit crimes to feed themselves and their families and cause disorder by using drugs too try to escape their situation / self-medicate. Would broken windows policing actually accomplish anything when the root cause is that the money was stolen from the area?
- eyear 4y ago[flagged]
- cheeseblubber 4y agoHere are some statistics that might help the discussion: "With a crime rate of 54 per one thousand residents, San Francisco has one of the highest crime rates in America compared to all communities of all sizes - from the smallest towns to the very largest cities. One's chance of becoming a victim of either violent or property crime here is one in 18." https://www.neighborhoodscout.com/ca/san-francisco/crime#description https://www.neighborhoodscout.com/ca/san-francisco/crime#des... And here is New York for comparison "The crime rate in New York is considerably higher than the national average across all communities in America from the largest to the smallest, although at 25 crimes per one thousand residents, it is not among the communities with the very highest crime rate. The chance of becoming a victim of either violent or property crime in New York is 1 in 40. Based on FBI crime data, New York is not one of the safest communities in America." https://www.neighborhoodscout.com/ny/new-york/crime#description https://www.neighborhoodscout.com/ny/new-york/crime#descript... Edit: I know this neighborhoodscout's methodology is not perfect. I wanted to use this as a starting to add more data to the discussion. Would love to see more stats on this
- PM_me_your_math 4y agoSpeaking from experience, if you go walking the Bronx Concourse at 2am, you are getting robbed at gun point.
- sokoloff 4y agoThere are a lot of places in the world where "nothing good happens after 2 AM..."
- baremetal 4y ago[flagged]
- neoromantique 4y ago[flagged]
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- Aeroi 4y agoThis is sad, but the reality is the homicide rate in San Francisco isn't that bad, in fact it's been steadily declining for 30 years and doesn't sit in the top 50 in the united states.
- enono 4y agoThis is false https://www.neighborhoodscout.com/ca/san-francisco/crime#description https://www.neighborhoodscout.com/ca/san-francisco/crime#des...
- sokoloff 4y agoI see as #29 on this list (when sorted by Q4 2022 per capita rate): https://wallethub.com/edu/cities-homicide-rate/94070 https://wallethub.com/edu/cities-homicide-rate/94070
- Aeroi 4y agoBoth of those sources are from third party sites without valid sourcing. I think it's important to note that while researching a rebuttal for both of these sources you guys provided, solid data from reputable sources is VERY hard to come by, which I found interesting. I'll also think one reason might be because municipalities report to the FBI UCR on a voluntary basis for their reports, and cities don't stand to gain much from reporting very bad numbers.
- aEJ04Izw5HYm 4y agoCan we take a minute to re-direct this conversation away from just the politics of SF? I want to draw attention to Bob Lee, a well-respected technologist and prototype hacker, always curious and sharing lots of interesting technical developments. He was a great role model for how Engineers should be respected in an executive capacity as he advanced his career from 'Software' to 'Product'. His efforts contributed to technology used by millions. What happened to him is tragic and wrong; he deserved better. Thank you, I'll miss you 'crazybob'. Please share your stories featuring Bob Lee, who I'm sure would like to be remembered for his contributions rather than as a victim of this unfortunate awful event.
- churchill 4y ago[flagged]
- m0llusk 4y agoThere are a number of ways to deal with criminals before they harden and kill. Schools and sanitariums are among these tools. Currently SF schools are failing to teach large fractions of their students basic reading skills and people known to have serious mental health problems are left on the street. While it does make sense to be serious about crime it also makes sense to be serious about dealing with people who have not yet turned to crime since by then even strong efforts may be too little and too late.
- Eisenstein 4y agoGood job completely ignoring the parent's request to not politicize it in this one thread. Do you think your outrage is helping anything here? Do you feel like you are being a benefit in this instance? There are plenty of places you can be upset that aren't in this one specific thread. I suggest next time you take the time to think for a seconds before hitting 'reply'.
- cmh89 4y agoSan Francisco isn't anywhere close to most dangerous city in the United States. Do you have any data to support your argument that the 'catch and release' policy creates substantially more danger than traditional American judicial policies?
- victor96 4y agoSad to hear about this, was it just a random attack?
- arzanr 4y agoEveryone commenting on here about how bad things are in SF has likely rarely or never stepped into the core parts of Protrero Hill, Noe Valley, Richmond, Sunset, Glenn Park, Forest Hill etc. SF is a tale of two cities divided by natural barriers. There is a side to the city where you see almost no drugs, or homelessness. This is not a dismissal of the real issues facing the city but an acknowledgement that it is still a very livable city.
- msoad 4y agoYou can not totally avoid the other side even if you are able to spend your way into the nice part.
- asveikau 4y agoThe block this happened on is one I think of as quiet. I think this is an uncommon situation.
- sk55 4y agoI've been to all of those areas and though they are nice, they are not as safe as I'd like. Especially compared to other major international cities.
- hackitup7 4y agoI lived in two of those areas for several years, and still saw more scary things happening on the street than I have in significantly longer time periods in other major metro areas. (The biggest difference fwiw was whether I lived on a very steep hill or not; the hill reduced the amount of street-side madness that I saw to near 0). The clean and safe neighborhoods of SF are livable (I loved living there), but at least personally I have found them to be notably sketchier than any other city I've ever lived in and I agree with you that the contrast is not particularly close. >95% of the shoplifting I've personally witnessed in my life happened in SF despite it being a relatively small part of my total life experience.
- coldsauce 4y agoWhile I agree those areas are much nicer, most people still need to commute to go work in, and spend considerable amount of time in soma, fidi, etc. I used to live in one of those areas you talk about, yet still was attacked and threatened several times in the span of 6 months during my commute to our office on Market street.
- roflyear 4y agoThis thread is full of "I left SF 1,000 years ago, it's awful! I know, because I haven't lived there in 1,000 years!" and "I'll never move to SF, this is why! I know it's awful, because of the news!" Not saying SF doesn't have problems. I don't live there, so I don't know! I do know that I live next to some cities that have similar or worse reputations, and I also know those reputations are overplayed.
- oh_sigh 4y agoYou have to ask yourself - why would SF get this reputation among all possible cities, for no reason at all? A lot of people have fun anecdotes about visiting San Francisco. For example, I was in SF for 3 days and was chased by a man with a knife in a park near a major tourist attraction. I lived in NYC for 12 years and nothing of that sort happened my entire time there. Maybe SF is unique in the dangers are equally dispersed among residents, non residents, and across neighborhoods of varied socio-economic status. Chicago is reputationally dangerous, but the violence is really limited to non-tourist neighborhoods that mostly poor people live in. So probably not the type of people who will be posting stories on HN, or get a CNN article written about them when they die.
- roflyear 4y ago> You have to ask yourself - why would SF get this reputation among all possible cities, for no reason at all? This isn't an argument. > A lot of people have fun anecdotes about visiting San Francisco. Also not an argument. > For example, I was in SF for 3 days and was chased by a man with a knife in a park near a major tourist attraction. I lived in NYC for 12 years and nothing of that sort happened my entire time there. Also not an argument. But I have had close calls in NYC as a tourist!
- oh_sigh 4y agoI never said I was making an argument. And asserting "Not an argument" is not an argument.
- uptownfunk 4y ago[flagged]
- albatross13 4y ago[flagged]
- eddieroger 4y agoAssuming you're making light of "common sense gun control," comparing the two is silly because it's much easier to cause fatal harm to someone with a gun than a knife, but also it is possible to both need weapon control and social programs like mental health care and help for the homeless at the same time. Not every issue is both, but we still need both.
- albatross13 4y agoNot making light at all, knives are incredibly dangerous. In fact, knives are used to kill more people each year than rifles: https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-8.xls https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-...
- dang 4y agoCould you please stop posting unsubstantive comments and flamebait? You've unfortunately been doing it a ton. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. We have to ban accounts that post like this. I'm not going to ban you right now because it looks like we haven't asked you before, and because I noticed a few good comments too. But if you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and use HN as intended, we'd appreciate it.
- browningstreet 4y agoI'm not putting any blame on Bob here (I've always been a dawn guy, not a night owl), but the city I'm in (not CA anymore) has lots of its bad things happening at 2am (the time of his stabbing) too. When I was working in SF (downtown, SoMa, FiDi) I had a schedule that got me to a gym at 5am, the office at 7am, and back on Bart before 4pm. I can't remember the last time I was in SF after dark. Walking the city at 5-7am is like wandering the aftermath of a war zone. It's sleepy, but the overnight destruction and misfortune was on display. That said, all the talk of crime here feels slightly premature -- the linked story doesn't clarify whether he was the victim of a random attack or by someone known to him.
- Apofis 4y agoIt really struck me that he was out that late on a Tuesday... could have been a mugging when he was on the way back home from something... but the time just doesn't feel right. A mugging on the weekend late night seems more likely for a variety of reasons. Then again, I've seen recordings of individuals with mental health issues that literally just randomly attack a stranger completely unprovoked, so who knows anymore.
- stickyribs 4y agoPrecisely. It’s intriguing to observe that the prevailing emotional response appears to be based on presumptions, despite the limited information available regarding the actual events.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- seaourfreed 4y ago[flagged]
- junio121tva 4y agoQro a melhor senci do ff
- rasengan 4y agoThis caught my eye just because I remember reading an article about this company being engaged in alleged mischievous activity very recently [1]. Thanks for sharing! [1] https://hindenburgresearch.com/block/ https://hindenburgresearch.com/block/
- rideontime 4y ago> “I paid them hitters through Cash App”— Block paid to promote a video for a song called “Cash App” which described paying contract killers through the app. The song’s artist was later arrested for attempted murder. Oh, the irony!
- guywithahat 4y ago[flagged]
- klyrs 4y agoTech companies caused the homelessness problem through an affordability crisis. So there's no real motivation to "solve" that problem.
- hsnewman 4y agoWhat does homelessness have to do with this case?
- s5300 4y agoLowest common boogeyman to most of society & who they look to blame.
- umeshunni 4y agoYou forgot the /s
- mullingitover 4y agoI wasn't aware that tech companies had any influence over SF's failure to build housing. Were they lobbing for zoning restrictions or excessive permitting or CEQA delays? Most cities bend over backwards to recruit employers who bring high income taxpayers to their city. I've never understood what's special about SF that would make that event undesirable. If these employers pulled out en masse, which seems like the desired outcome here, I feel like they'd be thrown under the bus all over again for causing urban blight.
- meowtimemania 4y agoI agree with your point, but most cities in the US can't build housing. There's definitely a correlation between tech coming in and house prices going up. In some ways not having tech come in at all is better for the segment of the population that doesn't own property.
- rasengan 4y agoTiming of this is worth noting [1] since they were recently accused of fraud. [1] https://hindenburgresearch.com/block/ https://hindenburgresearch.com/block/
- dxbydt 4y agoSpeaking as an immigrant - Worked in SF most of last decade. Left in 2018. Crime was on a steady uptick while I was there. Once in the Bart, a young man grabbed a cellphone from the guy seated right next to me & bolted out of the train. The train started, and the cellphone owner gave chase. The Bart police arrived soon after, with guns pointed straight at the passengers. The robber was fast and jumped over the turnstile & got away with the cellphone. I felt like I was like in a cops and robbers movie. People are trying to peacefully commute to work and instead you are subjected to guns in your face because of some shiny iphone. Rest of the train trip was some heated political debate between the left & the left-left, arguing what should be done. The left wanted to integrate the youth into the tech community by offering free coding classes so they wouldn't rob cellphones. The left-left argued for free iphones for everybody. I was like, hey how about catching the robber & some jailtime, which is what they'd have done where I come from. Ofcourse I didn't actually say anything, I don't feel comfortable talking about your politics. I work in a suburb in the rural midwest now. Neighborhoodscout says my odds are 1 in 1100. So my chances of being a victim have improved from 1 in 18 to 1 in 1100. How does it feel ? 8 year old kids here bike to school a mile away, snow or shine, no cps, nothing. As to property crime - once we went away for the weekend & the garage door acted up in our absence. So for a whole 3 days, the garage was wide open & anybody could have walked in & grabbed whatever. Nothing was taken. On the contrary there was a nice note from the neighbor about applying grease on the railing so the garage door stays closed. So if you are an immigrant & safety is a priority, yeah there are many towns in the midwest southwest etc. where you can be very safe. Houses are quite cheap & I was able to buy my house with straight cash, but ironically that cash was earned in SF! Indeed, I now get paid 4x less than what I made as a programmer back in SF. So yeah, from an immigrant pov, it looks like in this country you first have to pay your dues. Work in some high-crime zone like SF,NYC etc, accumulate capital. Then move to some peaceful rural place in the midwest with no crime & no nothing. We don't even have a mall.
- s5300 4y ago>> Houses are quite cheap & I was able to buy my house with straight cash, but ironically that cash was earned in SF! So… you came to the MidWest just to contribute here to the very problem you were trying to escape This is going to end well for society. Remind me in 20 years.
- hnburnsy 4y agoHedge fund Citadel decided to leave Chicago due to employee safety issues. Wonder if this will prompt similar responses in SF. https://nypost.com/2022/09/21/ken-griffins-citadel-left-chicago-after-colleague-robbed-at-gunpoint/ https://nypost.com/2022/09/21/ken-griffins-citadel-left-chic...
- artsytrashcan 4y agoThat was the company line. Ken Griffin aiming for a cabinet post with DeSantis so that he can divest without paying capital gains taxes is also a likely factor. https://youtu.be/kiMTRQXBol0?t=4754 https://youtu.be/kiMTRQXBol0?t=4754
- peanuty1 4y agoThe company line was that multiple employees has been mugged on their way to work.
- artsytrashcan 4y agoYes, that's what I said.
- hnburnsy 4y agoKen Griffin on Citadel leaving Chicago for Miami..."In April, Griffin expanded on the crime issue in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. “If people aren’t safe here, they’re not going to live here,” he said. “I’ve had multiple colleagues mugged at gunpoint. I’ve had a colleague stabbed on the way to work. Countless issues of burglary. I mean, that’s a really difficult backdrop with which to draw talent to your city from.”
- skrtskrt 4y agoKen Griffin left Chicago because he wasn't able to get his little conservative candidates to win elections with all the money he was pumping in, and he didn't want to pay Illinois taxes anymore. Chicago now is probably safer than it ever has been. He lived in a giant half-block-long mansion a short ride from downtown, and his employees were paid well enough to never touch public transit if they wanted. It was a transparently BS political play that everyone in Chicago saw through and rightfully ridiculed. Those quotes are designed for people who only know Chicago through right wing media like the Wall Street Journal.
- peanuty1 4y agoIf it's as safe as you say, I wonder why so many people refer to it as "Chiraq".
- hnburnsy 4y agoFrom the McDonalds CEO about Chicago crime via CNN... https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/15/business/mcdonalds-ceo-chicago-crime/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/15/business/mcdonalds-ceo-chicag... "For McDonald’s, though, the issue isn’t just about conditions in stores — it’s also about recruiting leaders to the company’s headquarters and convincing corporate workers to return to the office,” the CEO said. “It’s more difficult today for me to convince a promising McDonald’s executive to relocate to Chicago from one of our other offices than it was just a few years ago,” he said. “It’s more difficult for me to recruit a new employee to McDonald’s, to join us in Chicago than it was in the past.” And when it comes to returning to the office, he said, “one of the things that I hear from our employees [is] … ‘I’m not sure it’s safe to come downtown.’”
- gsibble 4y agoBob was a good friend, tried to hire me numerous tries at Square, and was my next door neighbor for 3 years. I knew him well and spent a lot of time with him. He will be dearly missed. I have been told from very well placed sources in the US Intelligence community this is probably a hit. That being said, I left San Francisco in 2018 because I was worried I would eventually become the random murder that would finally wake up the tech world to what an absolute crime ridden shithole San Francisco is. Don't quote statistics at me. I had numerous police officer friends who told me the statistics are all fake since they purposefully don't report over 50% of the crime in order to keep the city looking halfway decent since so much of it depends upon tourist revenue. I tried for years to tell my friends the city needed to take the crime problem more seriously and the response I always got was dismissal or that "it's no worse than any other major city." Well, I live in another major city now and I can tell you with great certainty, SF is much, much, much worse. And now a good friend is fucking dead. Fuck San Francisco.
- hn_throwaway_99 4y agoMy condolences for your loss. Simultaneously, I don't understand your post. The second paragraph states "I have been told from very well placed sources in the US Intelligence community this is probably a hit." But then the rest of your post rails against the SF crime problem in general, finishing with "And now a good friend is fucking dead." Starting off by saying it was likely a hit would appear to indicate that SF's general crime problems (as bad as they may be) are largely irrelevant to this particular case.
- blog0r 4y ago[flagged]
- koalacola 4y agoforgot to change accounts
- SecretDreams 4y agoTo be fair, it's probably easier to organize a hit in a city where murder and crime are somewhat regular occurrences. Not that I am saying this was a hit.
- subsubzero 4y agoIts a real bummer with SF, but the problems are totally self inflicted. If the politics were of a different breed I could see it being one of the best cities to live in the US, let alone the world. Having worked there for close to a decade the stuff I have seen was really depressing. I visited my cousin who works at Ouster nearby for lunch one day and was wondering what all these white casings were littering the ground, he said they were from junkie's needles. While on our walk a man was screaming inside a car with all the windows smashed in, and there were huge piles of shit due to junkies "unloading" on the sidewalk. I went to the local walgreens in SF and was trying to buy a tube of toothpaste, apparently the theft is so bad I had to have a person who works there open the case, and while I was waiting in line to buy it a homeless person ran out with merchandise. There are thousands and thousands of similar stories from others but until residents in SF start voting different I see things getting even worse than they are now. I know that may be hard to believe but we have been experiencing a boom economy, once that changes and things go south expect crime to surge to levels unimaginable.
- nathanvanfleet 4y ago"Ugh it's the woke"
- augment001 4y ago[dead]
- themitigating 4y agoHow do you know the politics of the city are the cause of the crime?
- infamouscow 4y agoConfusing politics and policy is a tell-tale sign of political ideology failing at the most basic and fundamental level.
- themitigating 4y agoPolitics and policies are intertwined
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- hintymad 4y agoI don't see what's wrong with SF. /sarcasm SF is the people's choice, no? The people in SF elected DAs who release booked violent criminals right away, multiple times. The people in SF elected politicians who told us, repeatedly and publicly, that looting is a way for people to express their anger or looters were hungry, and violent criminals are victims and questioning their policies are homophobic and racism. The people in SF elected politicians who could stand up projects in the name of helping homeless at cost of more than $100K per homeless person per year. That's $100K equivalent of after-tax income of a normal fucking American! The people in SF elected school board members who dumbed down curriculums. The people in SF painted "kill techies" on streets of SF and the people cheered it. And most important of all, per the comments here, SF is fine and violent crimes are just the right's wild accusation. So, what's wrong again?
- micromacrofoot 4y agoAre you not connecting the dots here at all? You think SF would have headed in this direction if it wasn't heavily gentrified by enormous SF salaries and subsequent nimbyism? It's the same gentrification -> disparity -> flight -> neglect cycle that's happened to lesser degrees elsewhere. This is unique only in its severity.
- nashashmi 4y agoThe government gets happy when rich people move in. The people are happy when rich people move out. We seriously don't need rich people near us. They have too many whines and gripes and are too resourceful to not stay. I say that as a (mildly) Rich person. But when a native sees the town go down, the native doesn't just leave. They still stay.
- colpabar 4y agoI think the point was that SF is the way it is because of the people who live in SF, which includes the people making those enormous salaries.
- keneda7 4y agoI think you may be the one missing the dots. The comment you responded to is pointing out that cycle you list (gentrification -> disparity -> flight -> neglect) is a direct result of the residents actions. They are the ones that elect the politicians and vote on propositions. The residents made a choice to go the route they did. What you see is a direct result of the residents' choices. I live within a couple hours of SF and I got to say I 100% agree with the person you responded too. The residents of SF caused the mess they are in.
- uejfiweun 4y agoHonestly this city is a pathetic embarrassment to the United States. The most powerful, richest country in the world, and our second most expensive city is a dilapidated unsafe shithole where our societal leaders get murdered on 1-day business trips. I’ve been on the fence about moving up to SF for a year but I think this might seal the deal to keep me living in South Bay. Shame on people who continue to work their brains into overtime trying to justify the city’s policies as they currently exist.
- voz_ 4y agoAwful city. Left after 20 years and have not looked back.
- ghurni 4y ago[flagged]
- savagej 4y ago[dead]
- aml702 4y ago[dead]
- SaintSeiya84 4y agoWhat a coincidence just when Jack Dorsey was being investigated for Square and Cash App being a shady money laundry machine
- PuppyTailWags 4y agoWarning: That thread has mostly devolved into discussing crime, totally ignoring Bob Lee.
- dang 4y agoI agree, but as this comment is not actually about Bob Lee either, I'm going to have to move it back to the other thread. (It was originally a reply to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35457507 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35457507.)
- PuppyTailWags 4y agoAppreciated! I'd delete it if I could since you pointed it out, but I can't, so I appreciate the move. :)
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- draw_down 4y ago[dead]
- huevosabio 4y agoI come from Ciudad Juarez. Between 2008-2011, the city was the murder capital in the world and basically unlivable. My brother and I were no longer living there because we were in college. My parents decided to send my sister, then starting highschool, to a city in central Mexico with friends of the family to avoid having her grow up in what was a life and death environment. My parents stayed. Mexicans speak a lot about cartel wars and the violence it comes with. What is not often mentioned is that what _really_ kills the city and society is the unorganized crime that pops up when laws are not applied. The cartel wars laid bare that the police was not going to prosecute anything in fear of retaliation. This opened the door to anyone to commit any sort of crime. Carjacking was increasingly common. My uncle fled one such attempt and miraculously escaped to the US unharmed but with his truck showered with bullets. My mother saw a guy getting shot in the streets just because of road rage. Friends had their parents killed or kidnapped. Every crime that goes unprosecuted is an invitation for a repeat crime. This is as true in Juarez as it is in San Francisco. The most basic definition and purpose of the state is to hold the monopoly of violence. It must jealously protect this. The alternative is unsustainable anarchy followed by someone else filling that void. San Francisco has been ceding its monopoly of violence for years if not decades.
- sizzle 4y agoBroken windows theory https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory
- AverageDude 4y agoThey applied that in my suburb and media kept comparing it with racism. They stopped doing that from last year and car jacking and other violent crime is on the rise again. I could never understand how “Broken Window” is racist? And I am a minority. Whatever the fix for institutional racism is need not be contradictory to Broken Window. They can work together.
- Pxtl 4y agoBecause "broken window" is too often taken to mean "come down hard on loiterers, grafitti vandals, people who lack the money to maintain property standards, etc"... instead of focusing on violent crime. Now obviously there's a real debate to be had about how severely petty theft and vandalism should be punished. I mean, George Floyd was killed over a counterfeit bill. But once you get into violent crime everybody is on the same page. But basically, in order to get all the violent crime under control, you need a hefty police force. And a hefty police force means a lot of cops roving around hassling poor people and people of color who are just trying to live their lives, which is what the left-wing activists get angry about. Figuring out how to get effective policing without intrinsic racism/classism that always seems to come with that is a big challenge.
- DueDilligence 4y ago[dead]
- ajju 4y agoSorry to hear about Bob. We must do better as a city and a community to prevent this kind of tragic and senseless loss.
- billconan 4y agoI don't feel safe at all living in the Bay Area. Just the day before yesterday, I heard that a colleague, who works from home, had his house broken into and robbed, even though it happened during the daytime and while he was home."
- tlear 4y agoHe was a really interesting, good guy. Getting stabbed by some filth. Fucking shithole of a city. In the last 10 years every time I am there I can't help but wonder HOW??? How can such rich city with so much potential be turning into this?? I grew up in east Europe, in general few places in US trigger my prep for fight or flight.. SF you are having a nice conversation, walk wrong way 50meters and suddenly my heart goes to 170bpm. I started carrying a collapsible baton last time I had to stay there for business. SF is going full Detroit, 100% self inflicted.
- mhardcastle 4y agoIf you use that baton, or even if you are seen with it by the wrong person, there is a good chance that you will be charged with a crime. Look up penal codes 12020 and 22210, possession of a club or baton in California is not legal. (To say nothing of the desirability of such a law - just as a FYI)
- JumpinJack_Cash 4y agoWhat people fail to mention is that SF is also the capital of white collar crime, not just regular crime. When bravado is in the air and the climate is a free for all it permeates the whole city, not just some pocket demographics.
- robd003 4y agoWhen will the people of San Francisco wake up and realize that their soft-on-crime approach is wrong? If SF took crime seriously and actually hunted down criminals and put them in jail then normal citizens could live normal lives.
- Scubabear68 4y agoNYTimes picked it up as breaking news: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/05/technology/cash-app-founder-stabbed-san-francisco.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/05/technology/cash-app-found...
- julienchastang 4y agoAlso WSJ: https://www.wsj.com/articles/cash-app-founder-bob-lee-fatally-stabbed-in-san-francisco-5c061716 https://www.wsj.com/articles/cash-app-founder-bob-lee-fatall...
- KingOfCoders 4y agoAlso The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/apr/05/bob-lee-cash-app-creator-stabbed-san-francisco https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/apr/05/bob-lee-cash...
- rabuse 4y agoThe residents of San Francisco are going to start having to wear chainmail soon to just go grocery shopping.
- sedatk 4y agoThe greatest deterrent for crime is the person's belief that they would be caught[1]. No amount of punishment deters people, not even the death penalty, from committing crime more than being certain that they would be prosecuted. [1] https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/nij/247350.pdf https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/nij/247350.pdf
- kspacewalk2 4y agoVery sad to see something like this happen. But. Cash App founder, a rich 42 year old father of 2, found dead at 2:35 AM, one week after an explosive report accusing his startup of being extensively used for crime and fraud[0]. This is odd. [0] https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/stock-market-news-today-03-30-2023/card/jack-dorsey-s-block-defends-cash-app-from-short-seller-s-accusations-zj8CUJsVXjYbgvEvmbZM https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/stock-market-news-today-03-...
- kelp 4y agoWhistleblower with 9 year old information? He left Square in 2014...
- flappyeagle 4y agoThere are enough comments on here that I am probably not adding much new, but I lived in SF for 10 years until recently. When I arrived (from New York City) I thought — hey, it's a bit sketchy but not so bad overall. I think it got progressively worse every year. I have no idea what policy changes would help, but it's the only place I've ever been where I saw crime being committed in broad daylight. It's the only place where leaving anything within sight in a parked car results in a break-in. A fucking bag of potato chips once. There are nice parts; the higher your physical elevation, the less chance of your being affected by crime. Literally people living their ivory towers watching their city burn. At the end of the day, it's a democracy. The voters get what they deserve. Remote work is here — the tax base is on its way out, or retreating to high ground.
- blastro 4y agoI used to live near the top of Buena Vista. The way the chaos of Haight, Castro, Mission neighborhoods would fade away as I climbed the hill towards my place was always a poignant experience. Calm and serene at the top, carnage below.
- Pxtl 4y agoHaving seen Toronto spiraling into the same mayhem of random vagrant street violence in the same moment when rents exploded, I'm firmly with the housing advocates on this: People think mental health causes homelessness, but it looks increasingly like it's the other way around -- cities with bad housing crises and insufficient shelter systems (NYC is notable for having an excellent shelter system compared to its peers) end up with people who hit rock bottom and become destructive out on the street when they'd be trying to get their lives together if they had a place to live. If people can't grapple with their demons in the privacy of their own homes, they will grapple with them on the subway and we'll all be collateral damage.
- peanuty1 4y agoToronto's justice system has also become much more lenient to criminals in the last 8 years or so.
- 4y ago
- simonswords82 4y agoI know nothing about the guy but nobody should die in a street like that. Tragic. I hope they find and hold person/people responsible accountable. His family must be in bits.
- amai 4y agoTime to introduce a wealth tax.
- xvector 4y agoI'm so sick of crime in the Bay. We need to be way tougher on crime. Immediate life sentences without parole for murder, ending catch+release for property theft. The mere thought of stealing, or attacking a stranger, or dealing drugs illegally, must become so unappetizing that they simply refuse to do it even when they have no other options.
- a-user-you-like 4y agoCapital punishment for murder. You take a life, yours is gone. On top of justice, you don’t stick the taxpayer with lifelong care of a murderer.
- burnte 4y agoPlus how cruel is it to stick a human in a box for 60 years? Rapists and murderers are dangerous animals, and we put dangerous animals down.
- a-user-you-like 4y agoYes, our prison system needs to be severely reduced. Someone smokes weed and gets thrown in a dog kennel for years? And we call ourselves humane for that?
- burnte 4y agoAgreed.
- dingosity 4y agomeh. lotsa people have religious objections to this concept.
- tablespoon 4y ago> Capital punishment for murder. You take a life, yours is gone. On top of justice, you don’t stick the taxpayer with lifelong care of a murderer. One problem with that idea is that even murder convictions are not even close to 100% accurate, so you'd end up killing lots of innocent people.
- yieldcrv 4y agoWould anybody be willing to entertain the idea that he was a whistleblower to the Hindenburg short seller report against Square/Block that indicts CashApp, or that there is any link? Something aside from “random degeneracy and vagrancy in SF with no leads”?
- kelp 4y agoHe left Square in 2014... 9 years is some pretty stale information. This makes no sense.
- yieldcrv 4y agoMaybe he’s not it But two weeks after the report he gets hit? Out of all possible people Well just posting for posterity, not something I have a strong opinion about “no” leads seems a bit of a stretch when there are glaringly obvious things to investigate and at least definitely rule out
- dingosity 4y agolol. dude provides "data" for the first part of this year and one year previous. Notes there's an increase and blames the city for Lee's murder. If you go back several years, you'll see that the recent past is about the same (around 6 murders per 100,000). Turns out that 2022 had a lower than average # of murders in the first three months of 2022. In 2007, the murder rate was twice what it was in the last several years. So I guess Mr. Leahy is getting good use of his "Statistical Cherry Picking for Dummies" book. Apparently murder is not a problem until a member of the rentier class is affected.
- dang 4y agoPlease don't post snarky flamebait or ideological battle comments to HN. We've had enough wretched flamewar about this already. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- headius 4y agoSo sad. Bob was brilliant and an all-around nice guy. He gave the JRuby team a tour of the Square offices when they were just getting started and advocated for our use there while he was CTO. What a tragic loss.
- godzillabrennus 4y agoSan Francisco is a lost cause for a generation. The political machine that controls it does not care at all about the life of the average person. They live in gated communities on private streets. They even screwed over the guy who bought the private street and started charging them tolls. https://news.yahoo.com/rich-san-francisco-residents-got-175422184.html https://news.yahoo.com/rich-san-francisco-residents-got-1754... I wish a political party existed in the United States that represented my definition of "normal people". One that wasn't focused on fascism/marginalizing people who are different but also cared about middle out economics by supporting policies that deregulate, spur industry, create jobs...
- dingosity 4y agoOr you could look at the data. Houston's crime rate is about 50% higher (than San Francisco.) Strangely... Chicago... that everyone talks about being "high crime" is about 50% lower. When I was a kid, we walked 5 miles in the middle of the night to avoid being killed by rebels. So... I mean... things can always get worse. Maybe stop watching Fox News and read some data.
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- djfobbz 4y agoWill the Bob Lee murderer still be eligible for the $5M in reparations?
- doomleika 4y agoI see people excuses this as "it's part and parcel of living in a big city". No it's not, this is a West only phenomenon. Singapore is safe, The entire Japan is safe, Korea, Taiwan. I deliberately removed mainland China cities to avoid "...but authoritarian..." arguments. Plenty of government in the world kept their citizen safe and getting murdered walking down the street is never a risk factor to those dewellers and they are way worse GDP and even wealth disparity than US.
- komali2 4y agoThe places you mention may have higher actual wealth disparity in some cases, but they have lower economic disparity, because they all at least guarantee healthcare, among other things. Singapore even guarantees housing. The PRC allegedly guarantees all of it, but when I lived there it sure didn't look like it, I saw tons of abject poverty.
- tomandrews88 4y agoIn Japan you can leave your laptop at the cafe, on the table, unlocked, while you go to the bathroom. I find it sad that in SF this is considered “amazing”. This is not amazing. This should be considered the norm.
- moderntechguy 4y agoBob has his watch, wallet, and phone on him (which he used to call 911) after he was stabbed, pointing to this being a targeted hit.
- junio121tva 4y agoSenci boa
- dial9-1 4y agohe promoted the very same policies that lead to him being murdered
- dang 4y agoYou broke the site guidelines badly with this comment. We ban accounts that do that. 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. Note particularly the one about ideological battle. Separately from that, you also broke the intended topic of this thread (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35457341 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35457341), I'm going to move the post to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35448899 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35448899 now.
- wesapien 4y agoI have such fond memories of my (work) visit in San Francisco in June 2015 during the week of the NBA Finals. I didn't know much about the city but I thought it couldn't be any worse than Manhattan. The only time I got sketched out was when I was walking up Filmore St. near the McDonalds. Some caricature looking fella started calling me ching chong trying to mess with me. I crossed the street before crossing the light and just walked on the other side pretending that didn't hear anything (earbuds) while keeping an eye on him. I always thought that I can go anywhere I want after growing up and living around slums in the third world at that time but every place has its own unique set of dangers.
- jennastrike 4y agoWhere to start? I have such a special place in my heart for Bob. He was brilliant. He was a gentleman. He was kind. Shining. Thoughtful and so so very generous. On more than one occasion he was a safe place to play, a deeply heart centered friend, and always offered genuine parts of himself to our interactions. Seeing Bob was always a bright spot in my San Francisco life, even when it was dark to be there. And now, when darkness seems to have won a battle, his light will always live on in our hearts. Thank you for being such a wonderful man, Bob. I love you.