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Arrest made in SF killing of Bob Lee – alleged killer also worked in tech
- drewcoo 3y agoI was really betting that HN comments would all be Mission homeless complaining about how dangerous the city is with all of those ultraviolent tech bros in it. Terrible prediction. This is why I never gamble.
- rasengan 3y agoDid they confirm their relationship? Could he have been an Uber driver?
- praveen9920 3y ago[flagged]
- graderjs 3y agoWell, not right now as the police just arrested them.
- cemerick 3y agoThis news really highlights the confirmation bias that was in full bloom throughout the "discourse" around the initial reports of Lee's murder (e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35448899 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35448899). Everyone is so quick to jump on negative news about the rare violent crime in e.g. SF thanks to feelings about petty property crime that it's obviously impossible to have any kind of fact-based dialogue about policy. Worth keeping in mind next time something comes along that might confirm your priors. (Edit: notable that the thread linked above had _2600+_ comments on it, most of them hysterical about SF crime [of course, completely divorced from actual stats, i.e. that SF has fewer homicides per capita than almost every other American city, including current faves Austin and Miami]. I wonder how likely it is that the same population will comment here to say, "I was wrong"? )
- aaomidi 3y agoI honestly thought the perp was gonna be someone who was hurt by this CEO on a personal level.
- suzzer99 3y agoFirst thing I thought of was HackerNews.
- 0zemp1c 3y ago[flagged]
- argc 3y agoI was definitely guilty of thinking this. Confirmation bias is a helluva drug.
- dabluecaboose 3y agoI remember as a teen going to my dad with some outrage bait news I'd heard on the internet that totally fit into my preconceived notions, and he just said "Now think about that for a second. Does that sound like something that's fully true, or is it something that someone thinks you want to hear?" I try to keep that tidbit in mind.
- f38zf5vdt 3y agoAs soon as I saw the reported murder I figured it was a business partner who felt scorned, but then HN narrative continued for a full week about the lack of safety in SF. While things might be bad, random murders by strangers are still a rarity compared to targeted killings.
- vimax 3y agoI find it strange that nobody is mentioning the Hindenburg Research report against Square that came out a week before the stabbing, and the fact that there’s likely a fraud investigation underway. https://hindenburgresearch.com/block/ https://hindenburgresearch.com/block/
- sct202 3y ago[deleted]
- kranke155 3y agoInvestigating ?
- GravitasFailure 3y agoCrossing "T"s, dotting the "I"s. For a case this high profile it definitely pays to be diligent. It'll be interesting to see exactly what the evidence is and how the investigation unfolded.
- h2odragon 3y agoIt does seem a little off that a perpetrator of such a crime wouldn't run, either. Either go straight to the police with "it was self defense" or get the hell out of the country.
- etc-hosts 3y agohttps://www.linkedin.com/in/nmomeni https://www.linkedin.com/in/nmomeni
- pxeger1 3y agoI've never seen a comment on HN redacted before. What does this mean?
- dang 3y agoMods sometimes put "[redacted]" in a comment when we're taking out personally identifiable information, such as doxing or when a user asks us to edit out their name or email address after the fact. In this case the GP contained a link to the suspect's linkedin page. Edit: after thinking about it, I think we probably don't need to redact. If it were a random person caught up in the story it would be different, but once a person has been arrested for a crime they arguably become a public figure, even though innocent-until-proven-guilty is fortunately a thing. It's a borderline case and I'm not sure, but anyway have restored the original comment for now. Edit 2: plus the same link appears in the article itself.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Teever 3y ago[flagged]
- spankalee 3y agoHave you been to the street where this happened? It's not a "the streets of SF are the way they are" thing. At all.
- awb 3y agoThose are two broad classifications. Any two broad classifications will have some overlap. I don’t think you’ve demonstrated that this overlap is any bigger than with any other random classification (hair color, height, type of car they drive , etc.).
- francisofascii 3y agoReally? I would have to at least assume that people who have committed murders have, on average, a higher propensity for risk taking than the average person.
- awb 3y agoI’d guess higher rates of mental illness, trauma, exposure to violence, overwhelming emotional responses, impulsiveness and a greater value on short-term instead of long-term goals. I know plenty of business/sports risk takers that have no criminal history. I really don’t think it’s in the top 10 most important factors.
- eclipxe 3y agoExcept the alleged perpetrator doesn’t live job SF, so your argument falls apart. They’re from Emeryville.
- Teever 3y agoLook all I'm saying is that maybe instead of assuming the problems in the streets of SF are caused by degenerate hobos that maybe, just maybe, they're caused by degenerate tech bros. Like who has the real power in this situation? the hobos or the techbros? I don't expect hobos to be able to fix their situation, but I expect the people with money and resources to be able to. The fact that they don't shows that they don't want to.
- xivzgrev 3y agoI wondered if the killer knew him. That area of city is not a sketchy one, and while random violence can happen anywhere it just seemed unlikely, esp given descriptions that he would be unlikely to resist a mugging (and provoke an escalation). Glad they got their man!
- eclipxe 3y agoFrom the article - they were driving together and Lee got out after an argument.
- kaycebasques 3y agoHe is not their man yet. Innocent until proven guilty. The word "alleged" is important here. In Journalism 101 they teach you to be very careful when talking about suspected criminals. You don't want to portray someone as guilty until that has been proven in court.
- graderjs 3y agoThe article says they were driving together in the same car, before a dispute ensued, which resulted in Lee being stabbed by Momeni.
- DueDilligence 3y ago[dead]
- j4pe 3y agoJoe Eskenazi, the author of this piece, is a solid journalist who helps run the tiny donation-funded Mission Local. They've done incredible reporting on corruption in the SF city government and punch way above their weight in the stories they break. I have respect for how Joe refused to join in reporting this murder as evidence of a violent crime epidemic, while still reporting on homelessness and property crime.
- kaycebasques 3y agoThey really do some amazing reporting. Based on the fact that this is the first article I'm seeing on this topic, it seems that Mission Local may have got the scoop [1] on the Chronicle and other big newspapers on this high-profile topic. That is a big deal for journalists (if I recall correctly) because it means you're doing better original reporting and you're more connected to the neighborhood. [1] https://grammarist.com/idiom/get-the-scoop/ https://grammarist.com/idiom/get-the-scoop/
- bombcar 3y agoAny small local news organizations will almost ALWAYS get the scoop on the big ones, for local news. Because the vast majority of "big" news things are a division of some conglomerate and just regurgitate Reuters.
- kaycebasques 3y agoThe Chronicle still does a lot of local reporting.
- justizin 3y agoYes and they rushed to cast this tragedy as part of an imagined crime epidemic. There are some good contributors to the Chronicle, but they skew fairly conservative for SF and have for a long time.
- 3y ago
- stfutechbros 3y agoI wonder if we will get apologies from the people who used this to justify spreading horribly malicious rhetoric toward homeless people.
- dang 3y agoTrollish usernames, which yours unfortunately is, are not allowed on HN because they subtly troll every thread they post to. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=true&page=0&query=by:dang%20trollish%20username https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme... If you want to rename your account, we can do that, but in the meantime I've banned this one. Also, please don't use HN for ideological or political battle—it's against HN's rules: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
- mztwo 3y agoAs the news media and twitterverse peddled the whole "crime-ridden SF" angle, I felt myself getting drawn into the same topic and agreeing with numerous friends on how much the city has declined. This is a good reminder of how we gravitate towards powerful emotional narratives, which in the moment can feel absolutely true despite an utter lack of supporting facts on an individual murder case. I hope this brings some measure of peace and closure for his family and friends.
- spacemadness 3y agoIs HN in the twitterverse? Because I sat back and watched people do the same thing here.
- mrguyorama 3y agoThe biggest lie people on HN tell themselves is that they are "special" and not just normal people like the rest of us.
- phone8675309 3y agoIt was gross to watch too, and the backpedaling from some now is sad.
- asynchronous 3y agoI don’t understand why it can’t be both: SF is degenerating when it comes to random crime AND this murder wasn’t by some random thug. I remember reading blog after blog on HN about people moving out of SF specifically for what the city had become.
- asveikau 3y agoThe nature of the random crime is very different from violent crime. People were saying violent crime is the issue, and here was the proof, the turning point. All demonstrably false. You point out the falsity and people call you naive and say it's the crime stats that are wrong, not their take. Their version is reality. As a San Francisco resident, I don't want us wasting time, energy and resources going after the wrong problems.
- yardie 3y agoWatch how fast this falls out of the news cycle because it doesn’t align with America’s view of San Francisco. So far I’ve heard it was: a homeless person, a junkie, mentally ill, violent criminal common to San Francisco. Part of me felt this was personal. A stabbing you have to get fairly close. Bob Lee could know his killer. And I don’t know him well enough to know who he hung out with.
- IndoorPatio 3y agoStatistically, it was always more likely someone he knew.
- yardie 3y agoIf you saw last weeks comments you would think it was a homeless, drug crazed, criminal. One of the tops comments stated, with authority, it was someone homeless. And how the cops were not going to do anything about it.
- spacemadness 3y agoHN really has a solid case of amnesia today regarding this.
- bombcar 3y agoThere were 40k suicides in the USA in 2020, and about 20k murders. So statistically, if you die by violence, you killed yourself.
- lesuorac 3y agoIdk about these numbers. ~38k people died in USA [1] from car crashes. Thats pretty violent but doesn't necessarily count as murder or suicide. [1]: https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/Publication/813266#:~:text=The%20traffic%20fatality%20count%20in,from%20the%201.11%20in%202019 https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/Publication/8132....
- sdze 3y ago[flagged]
- mbauman 3y agoYes, let's jump straight to other conclusions now.
- sdze 3y agoYes. That's why the comment section is here.
- graderjs 3y agoThere's such a thing as tact and respecting his widow and kids than to jump straight to scandalous speculations that besmirch his integrity, which are easy to make but in poor taste.
- piva00 3y agoNot really, it's more geared towards having substantial discussions, not whatever fantasy comes out of our minds.
- preseinger 3y agoit absolutely is not here for this purpose
- sdze 3y agoit is and you won't change that. Just because you have some delusions what you believe a comment is and what isn't.
- infamouscow 3y agoUnless you're participating in the investigation, you don't have any ampliative knowledge to contribute. This begs the question: what do you think the comment feature is for, exactly? Why are you even reading and responding to other comments?
- danso 3y agoPeople were so quick to assume the nature of the crime even when no info about a possible suspect had been publicly released. Check the quote tweets to Bob's 2019 tweet about "recognize that your black friends face challenges you don’t" https://www.twitter.com/crazybob/status/1181668744247930880/retweets/with_comments https://www.twitter.com/crazybob/status/1181668744247930880/...
- carrja99 3y agoShit, I wish I hadn't read those. I didn't need that today.
- f38zf5vdt 3y agoI would recommend just never going on Twitter, for any reason. People are less racist on 4chan these days.
- IndoorPatio 3y ago+1
- dontwearitout 3y agoThe AI research community on twitter is absolutely great, that's the only reason I have an account.
- f38zf5vdt 3y agoCome hang with us refugees at sigmoid. :) https://sigmoid.social/public/local https://sigmoid.social/public/local
- anigbrowl 3y agoThat's because the 4chan/pol/ crowd are actively pushing into Twitter; for all practical purposes it's the biggest chan raid of all time, except that it's largely at the invitation of Twitter's owner. Once again linking this excellent paper on the dynamics of intergroup aggression in virtual spaces: https://arxiv.org/abs/1803.03697 https://arxiv.org/abs/1803.03697
- danso 3y agoThe SF-is-a-hellhole narrative is compelling, but the report that Lee was not the victim of a random crime shouldn't have been surprising. The FBI says 40+% of murders are committed by a family member or acquaintance, and 10% by total strangers: https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/topic-pages/expanded-homicide https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-...
- emaginniss 3y agoThat leaves 50% in the unknown category. Who knows whether those other 50% have the same distribution as the knowns? It's also possible that most of the unknowns are stranger murders since the offender might be harder to identify in those cases. So, the ratio is somewhere between 10% stranger to 90% family and acquaintance and 60% stranger to 40% family and acquaintance.
- danso 3y agoHere's a 1977 NYT story [0] during a time in which there were many more murders and the stranger-rate nationwide was estimated at 20%: - 1,622 homicides - 1,246 where (known vs. stranger) relationships were established - 354 of that 1,246 attributed to strangers Today's clearance rate is lower [1], but it's not really apples-to-apples comparison for a lot of reasons relating to recordkeeping conventions. But clearance rate for white homicide victims in NYC is still around ~85%. The past few years, the % of overall victims that were killed by strangers is around 5% [2]. So yes, there is still some uncertainty in the exact ratio of stranger/friend/unknown suspects. But still not rational to automatically assume that Lee was the victim of random crime. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/1977/04/20/archives/murders-by-strangers-drop-in-new-york-decline-in-murders-by.html?unlocked_article_code=JSHl2T0YziF4MjL9gIIOU1d34rdD5-sbIUsRnyoKM76FozvT91eaL6AEgeXplqp6fZIdSuHWGt19-4AR10g2Ao2YnxVDkHsKkL7iw3cDa_PIhMeYK8aL9mii5MghgsmkNYE5DGEzip01X8UEusZAr_VUDujox4KQkr9Xc_wUoOnHs2vX-DE0V5oUf1H1s4EnQ8MrD24FcyPih8QD_3r5yRL0kAC4NphOCFH-CNOPOpoktcDvrtLZ5AWpzl6ysvAJZQ0HDbSxvIP9xy7ssAXC78hI4tHIljnAtyN-QcZQVefljwmsaVHMnWfFpI3d8_8OkdwvdGnRQHodMrFJWW4_AJeP5C1WO-CDbf8bAzuwSPxtBwfixWVsun-BUVC8G-Q24KKiJNE&smid=url-share https://www.nytimes.com/1977/04/20/archives/murders-by-stran... [1] https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/crime-without-punishment-new-york/ https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/crime-without-punishmen... [2] https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/ny-stranger-on-stranger-murders-on-the-rise-nyc-20220227-wbanz6stw5bgjdbr6tb23zx2vy-story.html https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/ny-stranger-o...
- graderjs 3y ago[dead]
- formvoltron 3y agoWow this is crazy. Now I feel like I don't need to know anything more. He was an awesome programmer and an awesome guy. I think we can just leave it there, no?
- PaulWaldman 3y agoIt sounds like this information wasn't released publicly by the local authorities. The article has a link to a LinkedIn profile. The writer indicates that the name and city of the LI profile matches the information on the person they were "told" was arrested this morning. Even the name of the company of the person indicated is explicitly referenced in the article. My professional world doesn't allow for ambiguity. As a journalist, how sure do you need to be about the accuracy of this information before going public?
- inconceivable 3y ago> As a journalist, how sure do you need to be about the accuracy of this information before going public? you're living in the past, my friend. no such professional standard exists today.
- magicmicah85 3y agoGenerally a source isn't somebody you don't know, a journalist should know who the source is, their relationship to the subject and have developed some type of trust with them. Without that trust, a journalist opens themselves up to libel if it turns out this person was not the person arrested.
- avrionov 3y agoHere is another report: https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/articleComments/bob-lee-san-francisco-arrest-17895071.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/articleComments/bob-lee-san-f...
- chaps 3y agoYou'd be surprised what information is released to the public. I'd be willing to bet that the reporter has access to dispatch logs from over-the-air radio [1] and cross-references that with incident reports at [2] and then does a lookup on [3]. Entirely speculation, but it's not implausible. [1] https://somafm.com/scanner/ https://somafm.com/scanner/ [2] https://data.sfgov.org/Public-Safety/Police-Department-Incident-Reports-2018-to-Present/wg3w-h783 https://data.sfgov.org/Public-Safety/Police-Department-Incid... [3] https://www.sfsheriff.com/find-person-jail https://www.sfsheriff.com/find-person-jail
- jmacd 3y agoI have a family member who is a police officer (investigator) in another country. I was telling them about this killing and how crazy things seemed in San Francisco during my last visit. His first and only response was "well, how do you know that's even related? Most people get killed by somebody they know." and I was like "well, yeah, but San Francisco is bad right now" and the conversation moved on.
- azinman2 3y agoIt’s unclear from your anecdote if you either learned anything or came back to the conversation saying your family member’s hunch was right.
- orsenthil 3y agoThe implication here seems 'an expert' had a right intuition and disputed a widely believed initial claim.
- azinman2 3y agoWould have been helpful to be explicit here about it, as it otherwise just seems to end.
- jmacd 3y agoI guess I left it that way because I was relating how it felt at the time. I mostly thought he was just... wrong. In retrospect it's interesting that his intuition was completely different than mine (and a lot of ours here).
- azinman2 3y agoWhat’s meaningful is how what feels like wide spread petty theft gives a real sense of lawlessness to the point where something like this feels inevitable. MANY of us assumed the worst, which is a sad state of affairs. I guess it’s good that it wasn’t seemingly random (although obviously horrific it happened at all), but I hope there is pressure on the city to clean up the other bits.
- joeblubaugh 3y ago[flagged]
- bsuvc 3y ago[flagged]
- azinman2 3y ago[flagged]
- SV_BubbleTime 3y agoI don't get it. Are you saying that Republican policies are ruining the city? Or are you saying that the established laws and regulations have nothing to do with the problem at all?
- azinman2 3y agoThe GP said “So are all the right wingers gonna apologize for pinning this on street crime?” My point is in agreement with the GP the right wing media loves to crap all over SF/LA and talk about how democrats are ruining the (country, city, XYZ). The parent comment didn’t seem to understand what they were referring to, so I gave a link that was a quick google away.
- SV_BubbleTime 3y agoI'm not arguing. I'm saying that we know don't know if it definitely was Democrat policies that created the problem, but we definitely know it wasn't Republican ones. For all we actually know they could be right. Can't be upset at that, especially while lacking any sort of plan or process to deal with the problem. I personally think the great weather is just as much factor as anything else. If I were homeless in North Dakota, I'd be doing whatever it took to get to warm weather. Now couple that I know the city won't take down my tent or throw me in jail, move me, will feed, cloth, and give me helpful things, yea, probably sounds like a decent plan vs freezing to death after being hassled by authorities. It shouldn't be a crime to be unfortunate, but it's also not sustainable to have 60,000 (admitted, but probably closer to 80-100k) homeless people in LA alone. So, I present a steelman style question... What if they're right? How would we know? And would it be helpful to dump on media outlets that talked about just because we didn't want to see it? Why it is no one can even remotely entertain the possibility they might be wrong?
- joering2 3y ago"Help!" he shouted, according to a local report. "Someone stabbed me." [1] He was in the car with suspect yet he says "someone stabbed me" ?? https://www.foxnews.com/us/cash-app-founder-bob-lee-died-pleading-with-911-for-help-report https://www.foxnews.com/us/cash-app-founder-bob-lee-died-ple... edit: it still doesn't make sense to me. If someone I know stabs me and I assume I have few minutes to live and call 911, I would say "help, Joe Doe stabbed me". I wouldn't say "someone", because that implies a stranger.
- deanCommie 3y agoHes not saying "I would like to report a murder and tell you who did it, their full name, and social security number" He's reporting his status and begging for help. He's thinking about survival. What do you expect to have said in his situation?
- joering2 3y agoI was screaming the name of person that shot me, thinking if its the last thing I say, at least this son of a bitch will spend life in prison for it.
- deanCommie 3y agoPeople like you confuse me. I would be thinking about my family, my legacy. Not some biblical sense of justice.
- sangnoir 3y agoPerhaps communicating that they were stabbed was much more critical at the time than who stabbed them as it was a medical emergency.
- bombcar 3y agoPeople writing the name of their murderer in blood on the floor is a murder-mystery staple; it is not real life. In real life you're in shock and what you do is completely disconnected from what you think you would do. The "watch people die" video collections show that, someone can be obviously dying (massive gunshot wounds, etc) and they carry on like nothing happened until they fall over dead.
- antidaily 3y agoRIP crazybob. And condolences to his family.
- jzellis 3y agoWhen I moved to SF in 1996, the murder count that year was 86. Last year it was 56. I haven't been back in a very long time, but I guarantee you it's a far safer city than it was back then. I lived on Market between 6th and 7th and had knives pulled on me, and watched a car get blown up across the street underneath Hollywood Billiards, which is long gone now - according to Google Maps, they're building new apartments there. I loved the Tenderloin back then, even though it was terrifying. It was full of weirdos and loonies and junkies and poverty stricken artsy types like me, who had no power or desire in gentrification - we were just poor too. But we embraced where we were and didn't try to change it. The loin changed me far more than my presence changed it - for the better. It taught me compassion and empathy and how to avoid getting knifed by a junkie in the alleyway. Y'all colonized the poorest parts of the city and gave the poorest folks nowhere to go, and you still complain when they dare to pop up where you are. I hope all that authenticity and exposed brick in your offices and apartments are worth it.
- bobobob420 3y ago“ Y'all colonized the poorest parts of the city and gave the poorest folks nowhere to go, and you still complain when they dare to pop up where you are.” Nope. One of the wealthiest cities in the world fails to look after its inhabitants. A failure of government
- JieJie 3y agoY'all could both be a little bit right on this, you know.
- criddell 3y agoI think you're saying the same thing with different words. The government isn't some distant third party. It's people from the community who are elected by their neighbors to run things in a certain way.
- hinkley 3y agoEspecially local government. It’s literally downtown.
- anonkogudhyfhhf 3y agoI know in the last thread everyone said he was a hero. But I looked at his bio and his last job was a token selling scam. Maybe he made some enemies
- bombcar 3y agoI've always thought Marc Antony's speech was bullshit - "The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interrèd with their bones." It's way more common to ignore/forget/never mention again anything bad someone who died did. Also the crypto world seems to be getting a bit stabby in various ways, as things come crashing down there may be repercussions. Unlikely in this case, probably. Much more likely to be domestic of some sort.
- spaceman_2020 3y agoIt's not in the tech circle news, but this murder happened literally days after Hindenburg Research released a very long article on money laundering and widespread fraud at Block (CashApp's parent company). Apparently the app is widely used to launder drug money. Not saying that's related, but you would have to investigate that angle in a murder.
- dkn775 3y agoWow that article is very detailed and there is tons of exploitative practices https://hindenburgresearch.com/block/ https://hindenburgresearch.com/block/
- AraceliHarker 3y agoWasn’t it a common perception among San Francisco residents that the security in San Francisco was getting worse, as shown by the testimony of Jake Shields, a friend of Bob Lee, who said that his girlfriend was attacked by a robber, even though it was a coincidence that the one who killed Bob Lee was an acquaintance? Besides, didn’t Bob Lee himself move to Miami because of the bad security in San Francisco?
- sonotathrowaway 3y agoI wouldn’t count on a hardcore maga ideologue to give truthful testimony about anything, much less the crime in a liberal city. He’s more likely to say this was a coverup by the deep state than admit it wasn’t a random crime.
- jjulius 3y ago>Besides, didn’t Bob Lee himself move to Miami because of the bad security in San Francisco? No: >But Krista Lee emphasized that her ex-husband, with whom they have two children, loved San Francisco and moved to Florida to live with his father after his mom died, not because he was scared to live in the city. https://www.ktvu.com/news/emeryville-man-arrested-in-connection-with-stabbing-death-of-cash-app-exec-bob-lee https://www.ktvu.com/news/emeryville-man-arrested-in-connect...
- Ar-Curunir 3y ago[flagged]
- yinser 3y agoIn a word, no
- pickledish 3y agoIf you check out the “similar discussion” linked in a sibling comment to yours, you’ll find quite a lot of talking about that topic, if it interests you, for example the current top comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35555583 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35555583
- xwdv 3y agoNo. The point isn’t that homeless kill people, it’s that homeless and drug addicts create environments where people are more likely to be killed, by anyone.
- kevinventullo 3y agoOne tech executive stabs another one to death, and this is somehow homeless people’s fault?
- anonymouskimmer 3y ago[flagged]
- haswell 3y agoSetting aside for a moment that this incident did not involve homeless people, we need to bring systems thinking to this problem, and ask what created the environment of homelessness to begin with. Focusing only on the symptom here is similar to focusing on error logs and system crashes as if they are self contained phenomena and lamenting the impact they have on operations teams. These issues are signs of upstream problems, and either there are poor coding practices somewhere in the org, or infrastructure that hasn’t been properly scaled/optimized (among a myriad of other possible causes). This community in particular is well positioned to understand this broader mindset.
- vegancap 3y agoAs if they posted a link to his LinkedIn...
- rising-sky 3y ago> San Francisco is home to much in the way of visible public misery, unnerving street behavior and overt drug-use. Its property crime rate has long been high, and the police clearance rate for property crimes has long been minimal. But the city’s violent crime rate is at a near-historic low and is lower than that in most mid-to-large-sized cities.
- xwdv 3y ago[flagged]
- dietsprite 3y agoThis reply is either a troll post or you're severely disconnected from reality.
- xwdv 3y agoAh yea you’re right. San Francisco is actually a wonderful place to raise a family and live a good life where nothing bad happens.
- jjulius 3y agoDo you live in San Francisco?
- dang 3y agoYou've been breaking the site guidelines by posting flamebait and/or unsubstantive comments repeatedly. We've warned you before not to do this. If you keep it up, we're going to have to ban you, so could you please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules from now on? We'd appreciate it. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34632592 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34632592 (Feb 2023) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27160890 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27160890 (May 2021) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26767586 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26767586 (April 2021) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23506140 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23506140 (June 2020) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22362031 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22362031 (Feb 2020)
- dmode 3y agoThere have been only 12 murders this year in SF and none of them have been random. And you are literally commenting on an article where the murderer was apprehended within days. And SFPD has over 60% clearance rate on homicides. So your facts and conclusion are so hilariously wrong I would ashamed to hang out on these boards after this.
- medellin 3y agoSF out here trying to cosplay gotham
- dmode 3y agoAm I the only one who does NOT feel unsafe in SF at all ? I mean, I choose not to walk in TL and SOMA at night. But why would anyone feel unsafe in North Beach, Marina, Russian Hill, Richmond, Sunset, GG park, Lower Haight, Valencia etc. I have spent many nights walking in Valencia and took Uber home at 2am. Doesn't feel remotely unsafe.
- Insanity 3y agoDepends on what your baseline is though. You are perhaps feeling safe because you're used to SF.
- NoImmatureAdHom 3y agoYeah, I agree with this. Visiting SF from other American cities that have nothing like the scale of its problems...is jarring. I'm sure you can get used to it. Also, we should differentiate between the feeling of comfort / safety (which is what most people care about), and actual crime statistics (which are themselves fraught, I don't think people in SF even report car break-ins these days since the police and justice systems don't work any more).
- thethethethe 3y agoPeople absolutely report car break ins because they want insurance payouts, people just don't expect the police to do anything about it.
- el_benhameen 3y agoI don’t live in SF, but I live nearby and take my kids there for outings pretty frequently. The news reports and anecdotes have made me a little wary of these outings, but our actual experiences never have. I don’t doubt that others have very different, equally valid experiences of the city, and I do hate to see the abject misery that’s on full display in some neighborhoods. But I’ve never felt unsafe there in the 30+ years I’ve been exploring the city, including while walking at night with little kids.
- fortran77 3y ago[flagged]
- bparsons 3y agoThis article contains stats that are pretty shocking and contrary to the overwhelming narrative coming out of the SF tech community. https://missionlocal.org/2023/04/bob-lee-killing-arrest-made-san-francisco/ https://missionlocal.org/2023/04/bob-lee-killing-arrest-made... The murder rate in San Francisco is preposterously low.
- JeremyNT 3y agoSF is safer than many of its peers, but some people seem to really want to paint the city as a failure. "Rampant crime" is one obvious way to do that. Over time the narrative leaks into the broader consciousness. Chicago deals with the same. I feel pretty confident that some of this is astroturfing from people with political ideologies trying to score points on blue states, but it seems to be quite effective however it is accomplished. People can be quick to scare, and appeals to their sense of personal safety are quite powerful.
- bparsons 3y agoPeople are conflating street homelessness with crime. Seeing homeless people in their neighborhood makes people feel guilty and uncomfortable, so they demand that the police remove them from public view. Because there is no coherent strategy to deal with housing in North America, this will continue to get worse. For whatever reason, reactionary public opinion is fine spending inordinate sums of money on policing, but freaks out when it is directed toward public housing, which in the long term is a much cheaper solution.
- nullc 3y agoOne of the first things I said when I heard about this was: "Gee, there certainly has been an unexpected number of stabbings around mobilecoin. I wonder if this has something to do with the billion dollars stolen from FTX by someone seemingly connected with mobilecoin." -- but at a glance I'm not seeing a connection with the person they arrested. Interesting. I had family ask me about it, concerned for my welfare, and I told them I was confused why this was getting national media coverage other violent crimes in SF hadn't received, and mentioned my initial thoughts that it might have been motivate by sketchy cryptocurrency crap. Yet when I saw the popular narrative that it was some random stabbing in SF I didn't really have a reason to doubt it: I've personally been chased by a crazy person with a knife in the city.
- olalonde 3y agoWhich other stabbings are you referring to?
- nullc 3y agoAh, apparently it was a strangulation rather than a stabbing! I'll refrain from repeating the accused's name here because I see now that the charges were dropped -- but it was on HN before and left an impression on me: maybe I'm old fashioned but I usually expect the number of assaults, attempted murders, or murders connected with a project team to be zero.
- shadowgovt 3y agoPeople don't talk often about it, but there's quite a bit of crime (including violent crime) that goes on in the Bay's big-money sector. I guess this shouldn't be surprising (power corrupts), but it sure does seem like people feel uncomfortable talking about how many tech execs end up poisoned by heroin from a prostitute or under investigation for a 30-year-old murder or dead in a workplace shooting.
- okdood64 3y ago> sure does seem like people feel uncomfortable talking about how many tech execs end up poisoned by heroin from a prostitute Source?
- faanghacker 3y agohttps://www.ksbw.com/article/alix-tichelman-indicted-for-2nd-mans-death/21940598 https://www.ksbw.com/article/alix-tichelman-indicted-for-2nd...
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- dj_gitmo 3y agoThis is perfect for a "ripped from the headlines" episode of Law and Order. They basically already did one like this https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Recap/LawAndOrderS14E22Gaijin https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Recap/LawAndOrderS14E... The second act could hang on a chorus of techie bum-haters.
- jb3689 3y agoIt’s pretty incredible to me that the whole community on the last thread was fixated on the fact that it must’ve been the homeless/drug addicts. What kind of place is it where you immediately dismiss premeditated murder, or even throw it up as 50-50?
- zenkat 3y agoI think that says more about Hacker News than SF. There's a level of hate for the city here that I don't understand. Feels a bit like a vendetta sometimes.
- whateveracct 3y agoI wonder how many of the negative comments are by people who are actually living or have actually lived in SF? And not, say, down in SV. I wonder the same about Seattle. How many commenters are speaking from Redmond or Kirkland or Bellevue etc instead of the city?
- HideousKojima 3y agoI lived in Seattle proper for over two years (2012-2015) and it absolutely was awful, at least in many parts of the city. Anywhere near Pioneer Square, for example.
- golf1052 3y agoI'm coming up on 6 years in Seattle. Lived in SLU or Denny Triangle (parts some people consider "downtown") the entire time. I've learned to just largely ignore the incredibly negative comments because my experience and the experience of all the people I know who live here are vastly different. While the city still has its problems I would like for people to approach solving them from a realistic point of view.
- yadaeno 3y agoIt completely depends on where you live in SF. The people in the wealthy hyper gentrified areas are baffled that people would think the city is unsafe. Meanwhile people with less income are exposed daily to an epidemic of drug addiction, homeless, theft, mental illness, all problems with straightforward solutions that the residents are screaming for. Its not one or the other, its both. Just because you live in a safe neighborhood does not mean that everyone that doesn’t isn’t being “data driven” or “logical” enough.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Aeroi 3y ago[flagged]
- sgt 3y agoGreat work Columbo
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> were both gay men Bob wasn’t gay. (EDIT: Never mind!) A man can have hooked up with guys and not be gay as much as a gay man can have hooked up with women and not be straight or bi. More importantly, we don’t have any evidence they were lovers.
- sgt 3y ago[flagged]
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> Society doesn't see it that way I was wrong, he did identify as a gay man. But we're talking about biology and identity. What society thinks is separate from what is.
- pbj1968 3y ago[flagged]
- dougmwne 3y agohttps://www.gaysonoma.com/2023/04/gay-cash-app-founder-bob-lee-stabbed-and-killed-in-san-francisco https://www.gaysonoma.com/2023/04/gay-cash-app-founder-bob-l... Setting aside the label, this does appear to potentially have been a crime of passion, which has specific legal consequences. https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/crime_of_passion https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/crime_of_passion
- JumpCrisscross 3y agoOh, didn’t know. I never heard him use that label, and remember him pushing back on it, but that wasn’t super recent.
- curiousbean 3y agoFirst off-- Nima is a person of interest. It doesn't mean he's guilty of anything. Even if they were in a car together, argued and Bob left the car and walked it doesn't mean Nima killed the man. I assume (and hope) the police have more solid evidence like a fingerprint on that knife or Nima's own blood/DNA at the scene or on the knife as is common with stabbings.
- yellow_lead 3y agoPerson of interest? There is a difference between that and having a warrant out. He is wanted for arrest - he's the alleged killer, not just a POI. > We are told that police today were dispatched to Emeryville with a warrant to arrest a man named Nima Momeni.
- rafram 3y agoHe is in SF county jail, booked on suspicion of murder: https://www.sfsheriff.com/find-person-jail https://www.sfsheriff.com/find-person-jail You cease to be "a person of interest" and become the suspect right about when the cops drive across the Bay Bridge to pick you up and bring you to jail.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- curiousbean 3y ago[flagged]
- tempaccount420 3y agoDon't say that! What if someone has financial interests to say otherwise? That would be very rude to them.
- SyzygistSix 3y agoAnother Vim versus Emacs dispute?
- squokko 3y agoI was suspicious of the "homeless killer" narrative because I worked in that neighbhorhood for a long time and there were no homeless people anywhere near there. Also, I've walked past many of the SF drug-addled homeless and none of them seemed physically robust enough to stab anyone other than another drug-addled homeless person. (the non-drug homeless around the Haight and those areas are completely different and extremely scary sometimes)
- johnea 3y agoYep, just more proof that San Fransisco is overrun with the criminal wealthy...
- curo 3y agoIs the "Expand IT, Inc" on the LinkedIn profile the only evidence that the "alleged killer also works in tech and is a man Lee purportedly knew." There's comments is this thread of amazing journalism but the LLC shows as inactive on the Division of CA website (entity 201008110204) and the Expand IT website itself is dead. For all we know, this is a Lyft or Uber driver. Unless I'm missing some SFPD statement known to the journalist? EDIT: got an old filling; see njstraub608's comment. My mistake
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- rhaway84773 3y agoIt’s pretty obviously not. The answers are in the article. The police claims they were driving together. You don’t usually drive together with someone you don’t know late at night.
- v0idzer0 3y agoI mean Uber?
- sbelskie 3y agoReading the article is always an option. > Rather, Lee and Momeni were portrayed by police as being familiar with one another. In the wee hours of April 4, they were purportedly driving together through downtown San Francisco in a car registered to the suspect.
- ryanwaggoner 3y agoTwo quick things: First, you apparently missed this paragraph: Rather, Lee and Momeni were portrayed by police as being familiar with one another. In the wee hours of April 4, they were purportedly driving together through downtown San Francisco in a car registered to the suspect. Doesn't sound to me like the reporter is just speculating based on the LinkedIn profile. Secondly, I'm pretty sure you have the wrong filing. The LinkedIn profile says "Inc", not "LLC", so I think it's probably file #4776106, which is still active, and registered with an address in Emeryville, which is where police were headed to arrest Momeni.
- curo 3y ago> The alleged killer also works in tech and is a man Lee purportedly knew. I commented below but the IT consulting LLC in the bio is inactive (both in the division of corp website and online). Is that the only evidence here for the statement above?
- ryanwaggoner 3y agoYou might want to start by reading the story before you try and dismantle it. A few paragraphs later: Rather, Lee and Momeni were portrayed by police as being familiar with one another. In the wee hours of April 4, they were purportedly driving together through downtown San Francisco in a car registered to the suspect.
- curo 3y agoI'd love a link to the SFPD statement if you have it (I cannot find it)
- ryanwaggoner 3y agoJournalists don't always work off of public statements.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- dang 3y agoWe detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35555859 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35555859.
- nkingsy 3y ago"In the wee hours of April 4, they were purportedly driving together through downtown San Francisco in a car registered to the suspect." This is from "multiple police sources" from the article.
- say_it_as_it_is 3y agoAllegedly killed someone, but let's share his identity with everyone anyway! Who cares if we're wrong in the end, right? What kind of impact could that possibly have?
- AbsoluteCabbage 3y agoCapital punishment is the only sane solution. When you put a violent criminal to death, the crime rate is permanently and instantly lowered. If you lock them in a cage for 20 years we all pay the bills and they end up coming out and murdering again on the first day out. Total insanity.
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago> [death penalty or ultimately useless imprisonment] This is known as a false dichotomy. Perhaps, instead, we can think of other things which are more agreeable than either of these.
- confidantlake 3y agoYeah which is why Iran and North Korea are beacons of safety and Iceland is a hellhole. /s
- djdudbdbbdbd 3y ago[flagged]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- hintymad 3y ago[dead]
- SaintSeiya 3y agoAnd everyone (especially here) blaming the homeless and mentally ill people abandoned by the system. The homeless-phobia of white collar individuals is the problem.
- phone8675309 3y agoA lot of that homeless-phobia is the fact that most white collar individuals are closer to living paycheck to paycheck than they're willing to let on. They're afraid of the homeless and see themselves distinct from them because "those lazy bums lost their jobs" and "I have to keep working so I don't end up like them". It's classic class warfare (fomented from the top) as a way for those at the top to end up with obedient workers who do not want to rock the boat for fear of the consequences.
- asdfman123 3y agoI knew this wasn’t a “random occurrence” due to drugs and homelessness. People almost never stab each other for no reason. But when I suggested it in an earlier thread I was criticized and downvoted for “spreading conspiracy theories.” I know we shouldn’t speculate but everyone else was speculating that it was random!
- tinglymintyfrsh 3y agoI recall a sad point to this case captured on surveillance video: As Bob Lee was bleeding out, he went to driver for aid who ignored him and fled the scene. Shouldn't they be arrested and charged for failure to render aid? Perhaps he would've had a chance if he had arrived at a trauma ER but it's now an unknowable.
- emodendroket 3y agoI don't think you have a duty to render aid, and it's hard to blame someone not wanting to get involved in a stabbing.
- addisonl 3y agoNot a legal requirement in this country.
- nova22033 3y agoBoth things can be true. Bob Lee's murder wasn't a random crime. Crime is out of control in SF
- dbg31415 3y agoIt did strike me as really odd a 43 year-old man would be out walking around at 2:30 AM... It'll be interesting when more details come out. All the "SF is going downhill!" stuff that came out... seems pretty irrelevant given this wasn't a random act of violence.
- jakeinspace 3y agoI haven’t been to SF in 10+ years, but I grew up in a (more) dangerous American city. I’m curious how much of the panic over public safety in the Bay Area is massively skewed by upper middle class immigrants (from safer suburban America, or from other countries) getting their first taste of American urban life. I don’t want to sound too dismissive, American cities are really dangerous and impoverished compared to what they should be, but is SF really that bad compared to comparable American cities?
- juliusgeo 3y agoI have only lived for extensive periods of time in two cities: SF (2 years about) and Philadelphia (4 years). The biggest difference between them is that even in some of the worst areas of Philadelphia in terms of drug crime, there were far fewer people actively dealing or doing drugs on the streets in large groups. It was more spread out—there were issues in all areas of the city, but there was no area with the sheer concentration of say the Tenderloin or SOMA. There were basically no differences in terms of the transit systems—I don’t think BART or MUNI are any worse than SEPTA.
- nemothekid 3y agoI think that has more to do with housing than anything. Most drug addicts would probably prefer to get high in the comfort of their own home.
- juliusgeo 3y agoThis is true—some of the people I met in Philly had serious drug addictions but their rent was only 300 a month for a whole house. I genuinely don’t think there is any equivalent in SF. That is probably also why I almost never saw tents or similar in Philly.
- acchow 3y agoSF also attracts plenty of educated immigrants from other countries, many of which have safer cities (think Canada, Europe, Australia, etc)
- firstSpeaker 3y agoMy first travel to SF was in 2010 and last one in 2018. In the 2018 trip I wasn't comfortable walking in the market street to get back to my hotel in the evening (I was staying in Hyatt Regency). Maybe I got older and more fearful for my safety, but that is a personal experience I have with SF.
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 3y agoFurther reading: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/13/us/bob-lee-cash-app-killing.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/13/us/bob-lee-cash-app-killi... https://www.ktvu.com/news/what-we-know-about-nima-momeni-suspect-in-cash-app-founder-bob-lee-stabbing-death https://www.ktvu.com/news/what-we-know-about-nima-momeni-sus... https://www.forbes.com/sites/sarahemerson/2023/04/13/bob-lee-killing-nima-momeni-suspect/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/sarahemerson/2023/04/13/bob-lee... https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/bob-lee-san-francisco-arrest-17895071.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/bob-lee-san-francisco... https://www.thedailybeast.com/bob-lee-murder-san-francisco-police-reportedly-arrest-suspect-in-cash-app-founders-death https://www.thedailybeast.com/bob-lee-murder-san-francisco-p... https://www.forbes.com/sites/brianbushard/2023/04/13/who-is-nima-momeni-suspect-arrested-in-killing-of-cash-app-founder-bob-lee/amp/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/brianbushard/2023/04/13/who-is-... https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/nima-momeni-san-francisco-bob-lee-killing-suspect-17895524.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/nima-momeni-san-fr... https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/crime/nima-momeni-bob-lee-murder-arrest-b2319329.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/crime/nima... https://abc7news.com/bob-lee-arrest-nima-momeni-cash-app-founder/13121930/ https://abc7news.com/bob-lee-arrest-nima-momeni-cash-app-fou... https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/arrest-in-bob-lee-killing-17895491.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/arrest-in-bob-le... https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11969477/San-Francisco-police-arrest-fellow-tech-exec-murder-Cash-App-founder-Bob-Lee.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11969477/San-Franci... https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/apr/13/bob-lee-killing-suspect-arrested-san-francisco https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/apr/13/bob-lee-kill... https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/04/13/bob-lee-murder-suspect-arrested/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/04/13/bob-lee-m... https://nytimas.com/nima-momeni-5-quick-facts-you-need-to-know/ https://nytimas.com/nima-momeni-5-quick-facts-you-need-to-kn... https://fortune.com/2023/04/13/san-francisco-police-reportedly-arrest-suspect-bob-lee-killing/ https://fortune.com/2023/04/13/san-francisco-police-reported... More on Block/Cash App: https://hindenburgresearch.com/block/ https://hindenburgresearch.com/block/ More on MobileCoin: https://www.wired.com/story/signal-mobilecoin-payments-messaging-cryptocurrency/ https://www.wired.com/story/signal-mobilecoin-payments-messa... https://www.wired.com/story/mobilecoin-cryptocurrency/ https://www.wired.com/story/mobilecoin-cryptocurrency/
- nier 3y agoIs it common for police to release so much personal information on a suspect? The linked article contains the full name, age, and city of residency.
- prawn 3y agoI've seen an article about this suspect that includes their address, what they paid for the house, other places they've lived, etc. Different to police releasing information though.
- Retric 3y agoYea, a great deal of information is available to the public once you have their name and city. Which isn’t really a new thing, many phone books used to include peoples address alongside their names and phone numbers.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- jongjong 3y agoI thought the same thing. Seems out of place how they mention such details about his address. He is obviously being doxxed.
- umeshunni 3y agoIt's BuzzFeed, what do you expect? And no, BuzzFeed News is as trash as BuzzFeed.
- majormajor 3y agoLook at it this way: do you want police not disclosing who they arrest? Name, age, city is pretty common; especially name and age of someone arrested. I'd imagine it public records. Some quick googling for recent examples. I just looked for news articles, not sure what if the police release has more residency info on the ones that aren't listed in the articles. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-02-17/suspect-montclair-triple-homicide-identified-relative-victims https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-02-17/suspect-... - name and age https://www.fox32chicago.com/news/2-chicago-men-charged-in-douglas-park-murder https://www.fox32chicago.com/news/2-chicago-men-charged-in-d... - names, ages, city https://apnews.com/article/entertainment-music-shootings-arrests-houston-8a503c29202df86c41af7f71e663dc53 https://apnews.com/article/entertainment-music-shootings-arr... - name and age
- woodruffw 3y agoThis is shocking and saddening, and should also be a lesson to this community: previous threads on this tragedy immediately jumped to blaming the homeless, when the overwhelming majority of violent crimes are committed by individuals known to the victim. Edit: Added "violent," to preempt diversions about non-violent crimes.
- Alupis 3y ago[flagged]
- operatingthetan 3y ago>One counter-example out of thousands does not prove SF is a safe or clean place. Strawman. I don't think that was an invitation to launch into the same rant from the last thread either.
- woodruffw 3y agoAbsolutely none of this justifies blaming every violent crime on homeless people, as HN is quick to do. SF is not an outlier, nationally, in terms of the proportion of violent crimes perpetrated by people known to their victims.
- Alupis 3y ago> in terms of the proportion of violent crimes perpetrated by people known to their victims The factoid you're trying to cite is specifically about murder. Most homicides are indeed committed by someone the victim knew. SF's homicide rate isn't out of proportion with other big cities. It's crime rate is, however, and the overwhelming majority of crime being committed there right now happens to be from homeless transients. The types that break into your car to sell whatever they can get a hold of for more drugs. Crime is severely under-reported in SF. The police are powerless to do anything to a transient - they will not pay a fine or appear in court anyway after all. So the system negatively feeds into itself - false crime statistics, which gives the politicians cover to claim crime is down. Just go there yourself... you can see it so very readily. The cleanliness is another related issue. SF needs to get itself back in order. It's driving people away.
- pyuser583 3y agoNot at all surprised. People are usually murdered by people they know. Even in SF, murders by strangers are really, really rare.
- throwaway5752 3y agoTo their credit Buzzfeed mentions this, but Mission Local appears to have broken this story: https://missionlocal.org/2023/04/bob-lee-killing-arrest-made-san-francisco/ https://missionlocal.org/2023/04/bob-lee-killing-arrest-made...
- eftychis 3y agoAs the old "joke" goes it is always the butler, the business partner or the spouse. Anyways, really sad story, that touched a lot of us close to home. (We still don't know what happened, these are still allegations.) P.S. The other sad part for me was that passersby sped away instead of helping immediately. Moments count in these cases.
- jjcon 3y ago> San Francisco authorities hit back at Elon Musk and others who had used Lee’s killing to criticize law enforcement in the city. Tagline is kinda weird... isn't murder kinda indicative of a law enforcement failure?
- gowld 3y agoNo. Law enforcement's job is to arrest and punish murderers, not prevent murders.
- jjcon 3y agoYou can't possibly be serious, right? So what is the point of police patrol? Adjusting police presence in different areas? Community initiatives? Prevention is definitively a key component of modern policing at least in every city and country I have lived in. If that isn't the case in SF I'd say then that they have obviously failed on all levels at enforcing the law. Not to mention, punishment is definitely not the job of law enforcement.
- jeffbee 3y agoWhat level of police ubiquity are you proposing, such that it would have prevented two people from two other cities from driving to SF in the middle of the night and starting a fatal altercation inside a car?
- jjcon 3y agoMore than SF currently has… clearly
- clipsy 3y agoPolice departments have fought legal battles specifically to avoid having any duty to protect civilians or to prevent a crime in progress if they so choose.[0] I do agree with you that they (not just in SF, but across America broadly) have in fact obviously failed on all levels, though. [0]: https://www.findlaw.com/legalblogs/law-and-life/do-the-police-have-an-obligation-to-protect-you/ https://www.findlaw.com/legalblogs/law-and-life/do-the-polic...
- 1attice 3y agoI do hope that someone notices how violent and dangerous these "tech professionals" are who have moved into our formerly peaceful neighbourhoods.
- spoonjim 3y ago[flagged]
- vlovich123 3y agoI’m kind of annoyed at people who automatically assume that homeless commit more crimes. Is there any stats to suggest that they commit more crimes than homed people? Sure, maybe they do some petty theft (I don’t know - is there any research). Maybe. I imagine most of it is in stores and not mugging people or crimes of opportunity. Most of them are just really down on their luck for whatever reason and can’t find their way out. There’s this narrative that forms, explicitly or implicitly, that these people are in that situation because they deserve to be. The drug problem they have is the cause of their homelessness (despite all the research repeatedly showing that giving people housing they can count on and a good support system is the best way to get then rehabilitated). We find the crime narrative so appealing though. It’s those dirty homeless. That’s why crime has gone up (homicides in SF at historic lows). And it’s exceedingly hard to overcome emotionally. I get it. But HN is supposed to be a logical community, not one where emotions are allowed to run rampant. When I walked up to my car with broken windows, my initial reaction was to blame the homeless guy next to our on the street. But realistically, who would stay by the site of a crime? Maybe that’s what he wanted me to think, but seems unlikely and he was very afraid I’d tear into him about it because that’s probably happened to him more than once in the past. They know how other people look at them and that takes a serious mental toll on you. How could it not if the vast majority of people around you treat you like shit. I had to remember that the factual reporting on the topic seems to point that SF’s car breakins problem is an organized crime. A crime ring the SF police can’t or won’t get a handle on. Maybe an explicit deal to keep homicide rates low? It came out Toronto police had been doing that and following that violent crimes started going up quite rapidly. Drug dealers and organized crime organizations aren’t sleeping on the streets. Heck, I’m pretty sure one tried to approach me to be a mule and he was dressed upscale and definitely not homeless. Most violence is reliably either someone you know or more organized crime (eg gang initiations). Sure. SF does have a really bad homeless problem. And they do cause problems but it’s mostly around there being messes everywhere which is unpleasant and is uncomfortable being around unpredictable people with mental illnesses. But I wouldn’t want to be in their shoes mostly because of how society treats them, so I at least try to have some compassion and engage with them from time to time. I know how to distinguish discomfort from feeling unsafe. I know logically and factually even crazy people walking around on the street are not going to turn into a problem (I’m surrounded by them daily in the part of the city I live). But it’s still uncomfortable to be around and even my dog is wary of people like that which speaks to the base lizard brain reacting. I accept that’s my reaction but it fundamentally is not the other person’s problem. I’m responsible for my reaction to uncomfortable feelings. That’s why I made the comment I did here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35448899&p=8#35454676 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35448899&p=8#35454676. I’m not surprised I was right. I’m sad at how strong and prevalent the “it’s gotta be the homeless” crowd was, facts be dammed. People really need to understand homelessness and react to it with compassion rather than treating it like a dirty thing they might infect you with if they come near and the source of societies problems. Homelessness is ultimately a reflection of the failing of our society, not a reflection of the failings of the individuals impacted by it. PS: the homeless don’t get any protection on the streets from the police. Most homeless crime is homeless on homeless because the police refuse to keep them safe or because the homeless district the police / governments due to repeated cycles of abuse and victimization. Not sure what the story is in SF per se, but I can’t imagine that part is better.