17 ms·

Stabbing of Cash App Creator Raises Alarm, and Claims of a Lawless San Francisco

43 points by vwoolf 4y ago

adameasterling 4y ago
"At one point in the harrowing footage, he appears to be stumbling toward a car, and then falling to the ground as the car drives away." This was so sad to read. I bet the driver thought Lee was a dangerous or disturbed person, and he ran away. I see a lot of other comments saying that our fear just comes from the media, but I don't think that's the case. I say that as a San Franciscan for two years now. I think it comes from personal experience. These are mine, in the last two years: 1. I witnessed the end of an extremely violent street mugging. The victim was left sobbing in a pool of blood from a head wound. 2. I was shoved by a disturbed person while I was recovering from knee surgery and learning to walk outside again with a knee brace. I was not hurt, thankfully, but easily could have been. 3. My building was broken into by a street person. He defecated in the hallway. Police had to convince him to leave. He was not charged. (Also, I drew the short straw for the cleanup. Not fun!) 4. I've also seen many disturbed individuals in states of extreme distress. Some of these people have left lasting images in my mind. A lady in a wheelchair who sleeps outside, screaming at the top of her lungs at some attacker. An extremely young female wandering dazed, out her mind, who apparently hadn’t noticed the feces that collected in her pant leg. Lots of unconscious people (likely due to fentanyl) in what should be super painful positions. There’s so much pain, just, on the streets outside my apartment... 5. There are also large encampments nearby with what appear to be dozens of possibly stolen bicycles. Once, a person in this encampment shouted at me angrily. (I ran away.) Just a couple blocks away, a tent caught fire, and it spread to the nearby apartment. No one was hurt, thankfully. When you encounter these situations on a regular basis (and when your friends report similar personal experiences--again, not news media!), your reaction to someone strange approaching you is to run away. You become conditioned to anticipate negative interactions, or violence, and as an act of self-preservation, you avoid/run. I've often wondered what would happen to me if I had a heart attack, on the streets nearby. Would someone think I've just had a nap from the drugs I’ve just used? Don't get me wrong, these are just the bad parts of living in the city; and there's SO MUCH good. Outdoor and indoor activities, club sports, transit and walkability, shops and restaurants, and I've made so many friends. For me, the good very much outweighs the bad. I just wish there was less bad. :)
notch898a 4y ago
It's nice San Francisco has such compassion for violent criminals and mentally ill homeless that their dreams can truly flourish there. Perhaps there is merit to the idea that stabbers need their own utopia too. Not many places you can get high on smack, shit on the public side walk, stab a CEO, and then walk around with impunity to live your dream again the next day.
- ethicalsmacker 4y ago
  One of my last memories in SF was around 4th and King where I watched a man steal from Walgreens, grab a person's handbag and run past a police officer and down the street. The officer didn't do anything and shrugged when the Walgreens employees were asking for his help. edit: by the way, this was around afternoon/lunch time in broad daylight.
  - zdragnar 4y ago
    Foot chases are being forbidden in some jurisdictions because it causes a higher risk of harm, such as a suspect running into traffic and causing a crash. That, and some DAs have built their career on lowering felonies to misdemeanors and directing people to "alternative" or "restorative" justice, meaning sending them to community service rather than prison. What's the point of chasing a robber who probably took less than $1k and will be released without charges anyway?
    - ethicalsmacker 4y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory
    - gautamdivgi 4y ago
      The problem is one of perception and human nature. You will eventually reduce your economy because of an outflow of business and human capital out of where this is happening. It’s how food deserts in America happen. No one wants to be in places where they are physically threatened. Edit - especially when they can’t defend themselves. I don’t like proliferation of guns. But condoning this is specifically making a case for concealed carry, stand your ground laws and increased risk of life.
maerF0x0 4y ago
> “A small minority has tried to weaponize this tragedy to advance a narrative about a crime wave that just isn’t borne out by the data in San Francisco,” Kevin Benedicto, a police commissioner and lawyer, said on Thursday. At a commission meeting earlier in the week, Mr. Benedicto complained that some on social media “are exploiting this horrific incident for political gain.” Note it'd basically be their job to lower that number, so no wonder they're incentivized to feign it's not an issue. And typical lawyer speak is "That didn't happen, and if it did we didnt cause it, and if it did happen and we caused it then it's not our fault" it prototypical legalese (not they're a lawyer too) Anecdata here, but after reporting 2 crimes in SF and hearing the police do nothing about it, I stopped reporting. I suspect their data is entirely broken by underreporting. FWIW I've also anecdotally heard, and observed similar in Austin which, for example, their roads feel more like being in a MadMax movie than orderly transportation.
- kevingadd 4y ago
  Crime is always at record lows when we ask police why they aren't doing their jobs, and crime is suddenly an urgent crisis when the police department comes to taxpayers to ask for another pay bump and more equipment.
  - guelo 4y ago
    The quote is from a police commissioner, not the police. SF's police commission is a civilian oversight board over the police. They do not have incentive to downplay crime or to increase police pay.
    - shuckles 4y ago
      The SF police commission members definitely have an incentive to downplay crime: if they thought crime was a problem, they wouldn't have been nominated to the commission! (The Board of Supervisors, for example, recently pulled a political maneuver to extend the term of a commission member who effectively wants to dismantle the police force before they would lose the votes to do so: https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/S-F-mayor-s-office-blasts-Supervisor-Aaron-17644090.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/S-F-mayor-s-offi...).
add-sub-mul-div 4y ago
My only takeaway is that on some level, a lot of people really want to live in fear. Letting one dramatic headline make you so emotional that you ignore larger trends in data is such a choice. It's not required. And as far as culture wars go, when it comes to something like gay marriage I get it, there's a policy winner and loser there. But what's the point of pretending cities are more dangerous than they are? The people there know the true level of safety, and how it differs from the performative outrage discourse.
- dzader 4y ago
  Do you live in San Francisco? The people here are fully aware of how ridiculously dangerous the city has become. There is no 'performative outrage discourse'
- joncrane 4y ago
  I think that's a bit of an unfair characterization. I would replace "Want to live in fear" with "Human brains are wired to pay more attention to facts which may present a danger to our safety, and modern news media exploits this to win the attention economy game." Human brains are also wired to pay more attention to anecdotal data than statistics.
  - guelo 4y ago
    Some human brains. I live here and don't really care about crime news and I don't have a sense that things are more dangerous than usual. It's a big city, statistically bad things are going to happen all the time.
- ethicalsmacker 4y ago
  The data isn't always accurate. Just because it hasn't happened to you doesn't mean it's not happening often. Your perception isn't always correct. Anecdote, I spent some time wandering around east palo alto (at the time, was the murder capital). It didn't feel particularly bad, but the data said otherwise. You can't trust random people's perception of safety. You can't trust the data either.
cde-v 4y ago
1 rich person gets stabbed and all of a sudden the city is lawless...
- rm_-rf_slash 4y ago
  Union Square smash-&-grabs, auto break-ins, open air drug markets, street defecation… there’s evidence aplenty of lawlessness in San Francisco beyond the narrow confines of homicide.
  - Entinel 4y ago
    I think the point they are making is that the Bay has been descending into anarchy for a long time but it is only when a famous rich person dies that we are making an uproar about it.
    - bombcar 4y ago
      People have been making an uproar about it (go back years on any story on HN involving "housing (costs) in San Francisco" and you'll see it) - the uproar is louder because the people inclined to dismiss/ignore the problem can now be confronted with an example of 'someone like them'. > The report said at least 50 gig drivers for companies like Uber, Lyft and DoorDash had been killed while on the job in the United States since 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/06/business/uber-lyft-driver-deaths.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/06/business/uber-lyft-driver... Nobody cares about gig workers getting killed, for example, it's just noise, because it doesn't affect those who are not gig workers.
- yardie 4y ago
  I think the practical rule is if you don't want to get stabbed don't go to areas where stabbings happen. And generally, this tends to be true almost everywhere in the world. The fact that this happens in an area not particular high in crime belies that rule. Even on HN, when we talk about crime in San Francisco the defenders will normally point out it's just a few problem locations. But how do you respond when violent crime emerges outside of those locations?
- 4y ago
Capricorn2481 4y ago
Alternatively, crime is taken more seriously when it happens to rich people. It's odd to watch the very billionaires who hoard the wealth, drive up property prices and force the lower class out of their homes complain about homeless people.
- DiggyJohnson 4y ago
  One of there peers was murdered. I don't think it's reasonable to characterize complaining about severe risk of physical danger on your doorstep as "complaining about homeless people."
- mansion7 4y ago
  Do you have any evidence the victim did any of those things? And do people who do those things "deserve what they get"? That's a serious question, because there a disturbing amount of people, many in SF itself, who have espoused this very view.
  - Capricorn2481 4y ago
    Not talking about the victim, who was certainly not a billionaire. I'm referring to tech leaders who otherwise would be making memes of a death like this if they didn't see themselves in the victim, while ignoring the fact that the homelessness that leads to crime is a problem they created. Do they deserve this? No. But is it frustrating to see them convince everyone that this is a policing issue and not an economic one? Yes
homonculus1 4y ago
[dead]
latchkey 4y ago
Yesterday a SFFD former commissioner was just attacked as well, by well known homeless people with a history of issues... https://twitter.com/MarinaMommie/status/1644201110205505537 https://twitter.com/MarinaMommie/status/1644201110205505537
- alephnerd 4y ago
  They're one of the old money families in SF - the Aliotos. His grandfather was the ex-Mayor from 1968-1976. Allegedly had mob ties as well, but NorCal ain't the Eastern Seaboard so ymmv. Around 4 members of that family have been on the SF Board of Supervisors as well and they have a LOT of property holdings around Union Square. They're also good family friends with Newsom (he appointed the assaulted SFFD's aunt to be a Supervisor when he was elected mayor and had to vacate his Supervisor seat) and Willie Brown (London Breed and Kamala Harris's mentor. Also a former mayor of SF responsible for the redevelopment of Hayes Valley, Mission Bay, and Van Ness. They have beef with Harris though because she endorses Breed). They own one of the major regional law firms here (Alioto Law), were in the SF Giant's board, and also own a bunch of the property around Fisherman's Wharf (the now shuttered Italian restaurant Alioto's) and one of the major Car repair companies here (Alioto's Garage). Edit: wasn't Joe Alioto that's in the ICU, but a family friend of theirs, but the Alioto family has taken up the cause now (bit of political intrigue too btw because of local elections)
armitron 4y ago
I left SF (and California) years ago having lived there for more than a decade, since I didn't want my two daughters to spend their teenage years in this sort of environment (the writing on the wall was crystal clear). I occassionally go back for a week or two, business or to see friends, and always marvel at the rate of decline. In the meantime, my life in one of the "conservative" states has never been better and my daughters couldn't be happier.
grapesurgeon 4y ago
[dead]

43 points by vwoolf 4y ago

"At one point in the harrowing footage, he appears to be stumbling toward a car, and then falling to the ground as the car drives away." This was so sad to read. I bet the driver thought Lee was a dangerous or disturbed person, and he ran away. I see a lot of other comments saying that our fear just comes from the media, but I don't think that's the case. I say that as a San Franciscan for two years now. I think it comes from personal experience. These are mine, in the last two years: 1. I witnessed the end of an extremely violent street mugging. The victim was left sobbing in a pool of blood from a head wound. 2. I was shoved by a disturbed person while I was recovering from knee surgery and learning to walk outside again with a knee brace. I was not hurt, thankfully, but easily could have been. 3. My building was broken into by a street person. He defecated in the hallway. Police had to convince him to leave. He was not charged. (Also, I drew the short straw for the cleanup. Not fun!) 4. I've also seen many disturbed individuals in states of extreme distress. Some of these people have left lasting images in my mind. A lady in a wheelchair who sleeps outside, screaming at the top of her lungs at some attacker. An extremely young female wandering dazed, out her mind, who apparently hadn’t noticed the feces that collected in her pant leg. Lots of unconscious people (likely due to fentanyl) in what should be super painful positions. There’s so much pain, just, on the streets outside my apartment... 5. There are also large encampments nearby with what appear to be dozens of possibly stolen bicycles. Once, a person in this encampment shouted at me angrily. (I ran away.) Just a couple blocks away, a tent caught fire, and it spread to the nearby apartment. No one was hurt, thankfully. When you encounter these situations on a regular basis (and when your friends report similar personal experiences--again, not news media!), your reaction to someone strange approaching you is to run away. You become conditioned to anticipate negative interactions, or violence, and as an act of self-preservation, you avoid/run. I've often wondered what would happen to me if I had a heart attack, on the streets nearby. Would someone think I've just had a nap from the drugs I’ve just used? Don't get me wrong, these are just the bad parts of living in the city; and there's SO MUCH good. Outdoor and indoor activities, club sports, transit and walkability, shops and restaurants, and I've made so many friends. For me, the good very much outweighs the bad. I just wish there was less bad. :)

notch898a 4y ago

It's nice San Francisco has such compassion for violent criminals and mentally ill homeless that their dreams can truly flourish there. Perhaps there is merit to the idea that stabbers need their own utopia too. Not many places you can get high on smack, shit on the public side walk, stab a CEO, and then walk around with impunity to live your dream again the next day.

ethicalsmacker 4y ago
One of my last memories in SF was around 4th and King where I watched a man steal from Walgreens, grab a person's handbag and run past a police officer and down the street. The officer didn't do anything and shrugged when the Walgreens employees were asking for his help. edit: by the way, this was around afternoon/lunch time in broad daylight.
- zdragnar 4y ago
  Foot chases are being forbidden in some jurisdictions because it causes a higher risk of harm, such as a suspect running into traffic and causing a crash. That, and some DAs have built their career on lowering felonies to misdemeanors and directing people to "alternative" or "restorative" justice, meaning sending them to community service rather than prison. What's the point of chasing a robber who probably took less than $1k and will be released without charges anyway?
  - ethicalsmacker 4y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory
  - gautamdivgi 4y ago
    The problem is one of perception and human nature. You will eventually reduce your economy because of an outflow of business and human capital out of where this is happening. It’s how food deserts in America happen. No one wants to be in places where they are physically threatened. Edit - especially when they can’t defend themselves. I don’t like proliferation of guns. But condoning this is specifically making a case for concealed carry, stand your ground laws and increased risk of life.

maerF0x0 4y ago

> “A small minority has tried to weaponize this tragedy to advance a narrative about a crime wave that just isn’t borne out by the data in San Francisco,” Kevin Benedicto, a police commissioner and lawyer, said on Thursday. At a commission meeting earlier in the week, Mr. Benedicto complained that some on social media “are exploiting this horrific incident for political gain.” Note it'd basically be their job to lower that number, so no wonder they're incentivized to feign it's not an issue. And typical lawyer speak is "That didn't happen, and if it did we didnt cause it, and if it did happen and we caused it then it's not our fault" it prototypical legalese (not they're a lawyer too) Anecdata here, but after reporting 2 crimes in SF and hearing the police do nothing about it, I stopped reporting. I suspect their data is entirely broken by underreporting. FWIW I've also anecdotally heard, and observed similar in Austin which, for example, their roads feel more like being in a MadMax movie than orderly transportation.

kevingadd 4y ago
Crime is always at record lows when we ask police why they aren't doing their jobs, and crime is suddenly an urgent crisis when the police department comes to taxpayers to ask for another pay bump and more equipment.
- guelo 4y ago
  The quote is from a police commissioner, not the police. SF's police commission is a civilian oversight board over the police. They do not have incentive to downplay crime or to increase police pay.
  - shuckles 4y ago
    The SF police commission members definitely have an incentive to downplay crime: if they thought crime was a problem, they wouldn't have been nominated to the commission! (The Board of Supervisors, for example, recently pulled a political maneuver to extend the term of a commission member who effectively wants to dismantle the police force before they would lose the votes to do so: https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/S-F-mayor-s-office-blasts-Supervisor-Aaron-17644090.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/S-F-mayor-s-offi...).

add-sub-mul-div 4y ago

My only takeaway is that on some level, a lot of people really want to live in fear. Letting one dramatic headline make you so emotional that you ignore larger trends in data is such a choice. It's not required. And as far as culture wars go, when it comes to something like gay marriage I get it, there's a policy winner and loser there. But what's the point of pretending cities are more dangerous than they are? The people there know the true level of safety, and how it differs from the performative outrage discourse.

dzader 4y ago
Do you live in San Francisco? The people here are fully aware of how ridiculously dangerous the city has become. There is no 'performative outrage discourse'
joncrane 4y ago
I think that's a bit of an unfair characterization. I would replace "Want to live in fear" with "Human brains are wired to pay more attention to facts which may present a danger to our safety, and modern news media exploits this to win the attention economy game." Human brains are also wired to pay more attention to anecdotal data than statistics.
- guelo 4y ago
  Some human brains. I live here and don't really care about crime news and I don't have a sense that things are more dangerous than usual. It's a big city, statistically bad things are going to happen all the time.
ethicalsmacker 4y ago
The data isn't always accurate. Just because it hasn't happened to you doesn't mean it's not happening often. Your perception isn't always correct. Anecdote, I spent some time wandering around east palo alto (at the time, was the murder capital). It didn't feel particularly bad, but the data said otherwise. You can't trust random people's perception of safety. You can't trust the data either.

cde-v 4y ago

1 rich person gets stabbed and all of a sudden the city is lawless...

rm_-rf_slash 4y ago
Union Square smash-&-grabs, auto break-ins, open air drug markets, street defecation… there’s evidence aplenty of lawlessness in San Francisco beyond the narrow confines of homicide.
- Entinel 4y ago
  I think the point they are making is that the Bay has been descending into anarchy for a long time but it is only when a famous rich person dies that we are making an uproar about it.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    People have been making an uproar about it (go back years on any story on HN involving "housing (costs) in San Francisco" and you'll see it) - the uproar is louder because the people inclined to dismiss/ignore the problem can now be confronted with an example of 'someone like them'. > The report said at least 50 gig drivers for companies like Uber, Lyft and DoorDash had been killed while on the job in the United States since 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/06/business/uber-lyft-driver-deaths.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/06/business/uber-lyft-driver... Nobody cares about gig workers getting killed, for example, it's just noise, because it doesn't affect those who are not gig workers.
yardie 4y ago
I think the practical rule is if you don't want to get stabbed don't go to areas where stabbings happen. And generally, this tends to be true almost everywhere in the world. The fact that this happens in an area not particular high in crime belies that rule. Even on HN, when we talk about crime in San Francisco the defenders will normally point out it's just a few problem locations. But how do you respond when violent crime emerges outside of those locations?
4y ago

Capricorn2481 4y ago

Alternatively, crime is taken more seriously when it happens to rich people. It's odd to watch the very billionaires who hoard the wealth, drive up property prices and force the lower class out of their homes complain about homeless people.

DiggyJohnson 4y ago
One of there peers was murdered. I don't think it's reasonable to characterize complaining about severe risk of physical danger on your doorstep as "complaining about homeless people."
mansion7 4y ago
Do you have any evidence the victim did any of those things? And do people who do those things "deserve what they get"? That's a serious question, because there a disturbing amount of people, many in SF itself, who have espoused this very view.
- Capricorn2481 4y ago
  Not talking about the victim, who was certainly not a billionaire. I'm referring to tech leaders who otherwise would be making memes of a death like this if they didn't see themselves in the victim, while ignoring the fact that the homelessness that leads to crime is a problem they created. Do they deserve this? No. But is it frustrating to see them convince everyone that this is a policing issue and not an economic one? Yes

homonculus1 4y ago

[dead]

latchkey 4y ago

Yesterday a SFFD former commissioner was just attacked as well, by well known homeless people with a history of issues... https://twitter.com/MarinaMommie/status/1644201110205505537 https://twitter.com/MarinaMommie/status/1644201110205505537

alephnerd 4y ago
They're one of the old money families in SF - the Aliotos. His grandfather was the ex-Mayor from 1968-1976. Allegedly had mob ties as well, but NorCal ain't the Eastern Seaboard so ymmv. Around 4 members of that family have been on the SF Board of Supervisors as well and they have a LOT of property holdings around Union Square. They're also good family friends with Newsom (he appointed the assaulted SFFD's aunt to be a Supervisor when he was elected mayor and had to vacate his Supervisor seat) and Willie Brown (London Breed and Kamala Harris's mentor. Also a former mayor of SF responsible for the redevelopment of Hayes Valley, Mission Bay, and Van Ness. They have beef with Harris though because she endorses Breed). They own one of the major regional law firms here (Alioto Law), were in the SF Giant's board, and also own a bunch of the property around Fisherman's Wharf (the now shuttered Italian restaurant Alioto's) and one of the major Car repair companies here (Alioto's Garage). Edit: wasn't Joe Alioto that's in the ICU, but a family friend of theirs, but the Alioto family has taken up the cause now (bit of political intrigue too btw because of local elections)

armitron 4y ago

I left SF (and California) years ago having lived there for more than a decade, since I didn't want my two daughters to spend their teenage years in this sort of environment (the writing on the wall was crystal clear). I occassionally go back for a week or two, business or to see friends, and always marvel at the rate of decline. In the meantime, my life in one of the "conservative" states has never been better and my daughters couldn't be happier.

grapesurgeon 4y ago

[dead]