8 ms·

New type of crime wave sweeps Oakland’s waterfront

39 points by turtlegrids 3y ago

xwdv 3y ago
[flagged]
ceejayoz 3y ago
“Pirates” is a pretty hyperbolic term here. People are breaking into marinas at night, not “avast me hearties”ing.
- incompatible 3y ago
  "thieves are arriving at night aboard small watercraft"; sounds like the very definition of pirates.
  - wkat4242 3y ago
    Sounds more like burglary to me when the boats are moored. Piracy to me is like a mid-waters thing. However the only piracy I really know about involves torrents and usenet so I may be wrong indeed.
    - rendall 3y ago
      https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37358353 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37358353
- escapecharacter 3y ago
  As long as they have shanties I'm cool with them.
  - arcanemachiner 3y ago
    Towns made out of ramshackle junk aren't really my thing, but I'm not here to judge.
DeepYogurt 3y ago
Awwwww hell yes! Yo Ho!
dang 3y ago
Url changed from https://www.boatblurb.com/post/appearance-of-pirates-in-san-francisco-bay-leaves-boaters-and-marinas-on-edge https://www.boatblurb.com/post/appearance-of-pirates-in-san-..., which points to this. Submitters: "Please submit the original source. If a post reports on something found on another site, submit the latter." - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
monero-xmr 3y ago
[flagged]
1vuio0pswjnm7 3y ago
Title was originally about "pirates" in San Francisco Bay. It has since been changed. A dictionary definition of "pirate" refers to (a) robbery and (b) international waters, aka the "high seas". HN commenters often react negatively to dictionary definitions.
- junofan 3y ago
  18 U.S. Code section 1661: Robbery ashore: Anyone engaged in a piratical cruise or enterprise who lands the vessel and commits robbery on shore can be considered a pirate and could be imprisoned for life.
  - rendall 3y ago
    I wonder if piracy has just not been a danger for so long that some people think of it as some quaint activity of the past, like cavalry charges and top hats. "Thieves on a boat? That's not piracy. Elements of the crime require peg legs, tricornered hats and parrots. The law says if they don't raise a Jolly Roger, then it's not piracy."
    - wmf 3y ago
      Hey, don't forget Captain Phillips!
    - tiffanyg 3y ago
      Uh, it has remained a significant danger in various regions for centuries. Perhaps you are familiar with this "meme"? https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/look-at-me-im-the-captain-now https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/look-at-me-im-the-captain-now From a 2013 "big budget" movie (Tom Hanks etc.) about a piracy incident during a period when the Somali coast was notoriously dangerous: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maersk_Alabama_hijacking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maersk_Alabama_hijacking If setting out sailing etc., three regions, in particular, absolutely warrant a look into advisories etc.: the waters around Malaysia / south of China / etc., off the east / west coasts of Africa (more recently, west, but sometimes east), and certain areas of the Caribbean. The ocean is much like other regions with human traffic in the sense of there being "bad areas" ... but, it's also different in ways that kill people all the time. It's not worse than land, per se, but, definitely easy to get into trouble without at least a little education (generally, best to get from reputable people / services that exist in particular regions - of course, you can still get into trouble, but, much less so than people who just hop on vessels with no real experience for "an exciting adventure" ... too easy for it to get way more exciting than almost anyone raised on "Hollywood" movies wants in real life).
throwawaywu 3y ago
I know exactly how Oakland votes. Therefore I'm glad they function as a magnet for people who are up to no good. Keeps the rest of us safer. Once they vote to rejoin and participate in our law abiding civilisation, I'll be concerned with their plight.
- _8j50 3y ago
  How do they vote!
  - the_third_wave 3y ago
    Like this: https://www.acgov.org/rovresults/236/indexA.htm https://www.acgov.org/rovresults/236/indexA.htm It is somewhat surprising to see the latest voting records are from 2018 as I seem to recall there have been votes in 2020 and 2022 as well? Federal election for Senator went between DEM - Dianne Feinstein and DEM - Kevin De Leon. The former won like she has done for the last two centuries. Representatives also all won by DEMs. State also went to DEMs for all electable positions. It is also remarkable to see that Alameda County largely votes by mail - only about ¼ of the votes are cast on election day, the remaining ¾ are cast by mail. That is how they vote in Oakland, CA and that is most likely how they will keep on voting even now that the chickens have come home to roost.
    - _8j50 3y ago
      Ok, I was hoping you would explain why those votes are bad. I don't even vote anymore but when I did, I never voted any party's line, in general I wanted a moderate president, conservative senators, liberal prosecutors and house reps and very liberal judges with a mix of conservative vs moderate and liberal for the rest. The individuals also matter. But this was before trumpism, now as much as I want to, I don't care if they curr cancer, I can't support republicans after their decision to make a religion out of trump. So when you say dems this and dems that, I mean a lot of dems downright suck, i can't believe they even let feinstein run! But if a person votes in oakland or anywhere else, is there a third option other than republicans and democrats? If not, it's either vote dem or don't vote. I choose not to vote because having only one option isn't voting and voting just to stop the other guy isn't a choice either. To be very blunt, I hope republicans do get their fascist way, that way at least violence is on the menu again and there will be more options on both sides of left/right wing politics after that. I strongly believe ranked choice voting is the answer though (that I prefer), that and banning pacs and corporate political donations. That way conservatives who aren't absolute fascist nutjobd stand a chance and so would non-progressive and moderate liberals.
xref 3y ago
We should probably start calling them copyright infringers, since pirate has been reappropriated.
advael 3y ago
It's incredible that reporting on crime and poverty has been so captured as to sound delusional. The article even goes so far as to link this rise in piracy to an increase in homeless encampments, but somehow declares the latter a "catalyst" as though it just came from nowhere and caused the piracy, instead of even bothering with lip service to the obvious third variable causing both. Noting that the police have been more active in removing people who can't pay what is no doubt an ever-inflating rent just to anchor their boats, I can basically just model the "pirates" as an obvious consequence of this sort of approach, directly parallelling the dynamics of homelessness on land We know where the homeless people came from: they were mostly displaced from homes in the area they now camp in by policy that has inflated cost of living while also harming renters and anyone working for a living's ability to remain in their home, as is true of most homeless people in the US, and the pirates are likely of similar origin It is an incredible testament to how civil we have managed to make people in the last fifty or so years that the present situation the poor of the bay area are in has resulted in mostly property crime so far, and a testament to the absurd, fearful, propagandized bubbles the wealthy live in that the small but locally-unprecedented rise in actual violent crime isn't serving as a long-needed wakeup call to more of them
- ericjmorey 3y ago
  It's organized crime. It's obviously organized crime. I don't know what homelessness has to do with organized crime other than be a scapegoat.
  - porkbeer 3y ago
    Who do you think is being organized? Office workers with free time? No, they are using the vast untapped labor pools located nearby, who already have incentive and little to lose.
    - ericjmorey 3y ago
      Seems quite irrelevant. Stop the organized crime at the source. Worked for catalytic converters, it will work on the docks.
cornfutes 3y ago
So this is why the Oakland team is called the Raiders.
the_third_wave 3y ago
That's good news for the climate given that there is a negative correlation between the number of pirates on the high seas and the global average temperature [1]. That is, as long as these are the right types of pirates of course which remains to be seen. Do they sport wooden legs? Parrots on their shoulders? Do they speak the right language? It now being only 17 days - a prime number, clearly this has some deeper meaning - to International Talk Like a Pirate Day I sense a convergence of the forces of good coming up. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster#Pirates_and_global_warming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster#Pirat... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Talk_Like_a_Pirate_Day https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Talk_Like_a_Pira...
doomleika 3y ago
That's exactly what you voted for. enjoy the freedom.

39 points by turtlegrids 3y ago

xwdv 3y ago

[flagged]

ceejayoz 3y ago

“Pirates” is a pretty hyperbolic term here. People are breaking into marinas at night, not “avast me hearties”ing.

incompatible 3y ago
"thieves are arriving at night aboard small watercraft"; sounds like the very definition of pirates.
- wkat4242 3y ago
  Sounds more like burglary to me when the boats are moored. Piracy to me is like a mid-waters thing. However the only piracy I really know about involves torrents and usenet so I may be wrong indeed.
  - rendall 3y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37358353 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37358353
escapecharacter 3y ago
As long as they have shanties I'm cool with them.
- arcanemachiner 3y ago
  Towns made out of ramshackle junk aren't really my thing, but I'm not here to judge.

DeepYogurt 3y ago

Awwwww hell yes! Yo Ho!

dang 3y ago

Url changed from https://www.boatblurb.com/post/appearance-of-pirates-in-san-francisco-bay-leaves-boaters-and-marinas-on-edge https://www.boatblurb.com/post/appearance-of-pirates-in-san-..., which points to this. Submitters: "Please submit the original source. If a post reports on something found on another site, submit the latter." - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

monero-xmr 3y ago

[flagged]

1vuio0pswjnm7 3y ago

Title was originally about "pirates" in San Francisco Bay. It has since been changed. A dictionary definition of "pirate" refers to (a) robbery and (b) international waters, aka the "high seas". HN commenters often react negatively to dictionary definitions.

junofan 3y ago
18 U.S. Code section 1661: Robbery ashore: Anyone engaged in a piratical cruise or enterprise who lands the vessel and commits robbery on shore can be considered a pirate and could be imprisoned for life.
- rendall 3y ago
  I wonder if piracy has just not been a danger for so long that some people think of it as some quaint activity of the past, like cavalry charges and top hats. "Thieves on a boat? That's not piracy. Elements of the crime require peg legs, tricornered hats and parrots. The law says if they don't raise a Jolly Roger, then it's not piracy."
  - wmf 3y ago
    Hey, don't forget Captain Phillips!
  - tiffanyg 3y ago
    Uh, it has remained a significant danger in various regions for centuries. Perhaps you are familiar with this "meme"? https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/look-at-me-im-the-captain-now https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/look-at-me-im-the-captain-now From a 2013 "big budget" movie (Tom Hanks etc.) about a piracy incident during a period when the Somali coast was notoriously dangerous: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maersk_Alabama_hijacking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maersk_Alabama_hijacking If setting out sailing etc., three regions, in particular, absolutely warrant a look into advisories etc.: the waters around Malaysia / south of China / etc., off the east / west coasts of Africa (more recently, west, but sometimes east), and certain areas of the Caribbean. The ocean is much like other regions with human traffic in the sense of there being "bad areas" ... but, it's also different in ways that kill people all the time. It's not worse than land, per se, but, definitely easy to get into trouble without at least a little education (generally, best to get from reputable people / services that exist in particular regions - of course, you can still get into trouble, but, much less so than people who just hop on vessels with no real experience for "an exciting adventure" ... too easy for it to get way more exciting than almost anyone raised on "Hollywood" movies wants in real life).

throwawaywu 3y ago

I know exactly how Oakland votes. Therefore I'm glad they function as a magnet for people who are up to no good. Keeps the rest of us safer. Once they vote to rejoin and participate in our law abiding civilisation, I'll be concerned with their plight.

_8j50 3y ago
How do they vote!
- the_third_wave 3y ago
  Like this: https://www.acgov.org/rovresults/236/indexA.htm https://www.acgov.org/rovresults/236/indexA.htm It is somewhat surprising to see the latest voting records are from 2018 as I seem to recall there have been votes in 2020 and 2022 as well? Federal election for Senator went between DEM - Dianne Feinstein and DEM - Kevin De Leon. The former won like she has done for the last two centuries. Representatives also all won by DEMs. State also went to DEMs for all electable positions. It is also remarkable to see that Alameda County largely votes by mail - only about ¼ of the votes are cast on election day, the remaining ¾ are cast by mail. That is how they vote in Oakland, CA and that is most likely how they will keep on voting even now that the chickens have come home to roost.
  - _8j50 3y ago
    Ok, I was hoping you would explain why those votes are bad. I don't even vote anymore but when I did, I never voted any party's line, in general I wanted a moderate president, conservative senators, liberal prosecutors and house reps and very liberal judges with a mix of conservative vs moderate and liberal for the rest. The individuals also matter. But this was before trumpism, now as much as I want to, I don't care if they curr cancer, I can't support republicans after their decision to make a religion out of trump. So when you say dems this and dems that, I mean a lot of dems downright suck, i can't believe they even let feinstein run! But if a person votes in oakland or anywhere else, is there a third option other than republicans and democrats? If not, it's either vote dem or don't vote. I choose not to vote because having only one option isn't voting and voting just to stop the other guy isn't a choice either. To be very blunt, I hope republicans do get their fascist way, that way at least violence is on the menu again and there will be more options on both sides of left/right wing politics after that. I strongly believe ranked choice voting is the answer though (that I prefer), that and banning pacs and corporate political donations. That way conservatives who aren't absolute fascist nutjobd stand a chance and so would non-progressive and moderate liberals.

xref 3y ago

We should probably start calling them copyright infringers, since pirate has been reappropriated.

advael 3y ago

It's incredible that reporting on crime and poverty has been so captured as to sound delusional. The article even goes so far as to link this rise in piracy to an increase in homeless encampments, but somehow declares the latter a "catalyst" as though it just came from nowhere and caused the piracy, instead of even bothering with lip service to the obvious third variable causing both. Noting that the police have been more active in removing people who can't pay what is no doubt an ever-inflating rent just to anchor their boats, I can basically just model the "pirates" as an obvious consequence of this sort of approach, directly parallelling the dynamics of homelessness on land We know where the homeless people came from: they were mostly displaced from homes in the area they now camp in by policy that has inflated cost of living while also harming renters and anyone working for a living's ability to remain in their home, as is true of most homeless people in the US, and the pirates are likely of similar origin It is an incredible testament to how civil we have managed to make people in the last fifty or so years that the present situation the poor of the bay area are in has resulted in mostly property crime so far, and a testament to the absurd, fearful, propagandized bubbles the wealthy live in that the small but locally-unprecedented rise in actual violent crime isn't serving as a long-needed wakeup call to more of them

ericjmorey 3y ago
It's organized crime. It's obviously organized crime. I don't know what homelessness has to do with organized crime other than be a scapegoat.
- porkbeer 3y ago
  Who do you think is being organized? Office workers with free time? No, they are using the vast untapped labor pools located nearby, who already have incentive and little to lose.
  - ericjmorey 3y ago
    Seems quite irrelevant. Stop the organized crime at the source. Worked for catalytic converters, it will work on the docks.

cornfutes 3y ago

So this is why the Oakland team is called the Raiders.

the_third_wave 3y ago

That's good news for the climate given that there is a negative correlation between the number of pirates on the high seas and the global average temperature [1]. That is, as long as these are the right types of pirates of course which remains to be seen. Do they sport wooden legs? Parrots on their shoulders? Do they speak the right language? It now being only 17 days - a prime number, clearly this has some deeper meaning - to International Talk Like a Pirate Day I sense a convergence of the forces of good coming up. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster#Pirates_and_global_warming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster#Pirat... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Talk_Like_a_Pirate_Day https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Talk_Like_a_Pira...

doomleika 3y ago

That's exactly what you voted for. enjoy the freedom.