San Francisco Turns into 'American Disgrace'

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Alot of older cities were in decline and dangerous by the 1980s then crack hit the scene which started their current decent. I've worked in neighborhoods that looked like a scene out of the TV show The Wire. I've tried avoiding them when not working. Simply not worth the risk. Criminals are much more brazen and mobile now, it's not just about avoiding certain areas anymore.

California has been an indicator or leader in trends good or bad for decades. And things like brazen and mob shoplifting started or are more prevelant. People take note when they see something new or different including high numbers. Neighborhoods can change rapidly in a city with one block being heaven and the next hell. But social media and technology lets criminals and legally challenged see these trends as well which helps crime spread trends. Also with California the weather is more conducive to escapes when they run out of a store they don't have to worry about slipping on ice or snow. They say the highway system has favored bank robbers for decades.

The thuggish brutality of crimes like gangs using bats in the OP seems more of a NYC thing with numerous videos of assaults,attacks etc. Cities are a target rich environment for criminals, throw in weather, money albeit a corporation's wealth/store location the criminals will follow the money literally with follow home robberies/jugging now.
 

I read about that story weeks ago on a local news site. Numbers of adult criminals from across the SF Bay Bridge in Oakland drive into San Francisco, some with teenagers to steal, burglarize, and steal vehicles. They use teenagers because the ridiculous California justice system both won't publicly name them if apprehended and usually quickly release them to their parents. Many of course are repeat offenders, but because the court system insulates them, the public rarely hears about how their cases are handled.

This is a primary reason why I support a return to a transparent public corporal punishment system. A system that does not need to incarcerate with its huge cost to society, while inflicting a reasonable amount of deterring discomfort and public embarrassment. Another deterrent that SF needs to implement are ALPR cameras at on ramps and off ramps to the SF Bay Bridge.

As for the news story and many others bashing The City, they are not portraying reality of life there except in limited areas. Much of The City is rather safe to visit during the day, with crime restricted to downtown, shoreline tourist area, and poorest neighborhoods. Many of the city's traditional poorer working class residential neighborhood residents, have long since moved elsewhere because housing costs are too high. At night criminals, expand their crimes into adjacent areas. If one notices broken glass along streets, that is a sure sign criminals have been breaking vehicle windows and exploring areas for theft.

Much of SF downtown requires parking in expensive parking garages and lots that themselves are targets of thieves. I occasionally visit north shore SF tourist areas, a 55 mile drive north, and always park for free where one rarely sees such crimes about visually open Marina Green with lots of people walking about. On other trips will park outside huge Golden Gate Park on residential street areas that is also rather safe.

The above noted, San Francisco has much more burglary and theft crimes than politically manipulated statistics show because much goes unreported due to lack of politically controlled police response.
 
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againstthegrain said:
Your brain on crime

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And there is a 3rd graph in the article that represents the opinions of a subset of Americans which is particularly telling.
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Problem with crime statistics over the last decade especially or so is that many cities have DAs that tend to under or not charge for numerous crimes. Or states have raised theft dollar amounts for charging purposes. Some police departments have a policies that deprioritize some crimes.
 
WhatInThe said:
Problem with crime statistics over the last decade especially or so is that many cities have DAs that tend to under or not charge for numerous crimes. Or states have raised theft dollar amounts for charging purposes. Some police departments have a policies that deprioritize some crimes.
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And the trouble with that is, what you're saying is don't believe anything. So what do you base your belief on, a random story on Fox? It is well documented that crime is falling in the US. The issue is, that's no comfort to victims.
 
murder nyc.jpg
You are conflating charging of a crime w the occurrence of a crime.

Murder is a crime that can't be manipulated. It's still a murder even if no one is ever charged or bargained down to a lesser offense in a plea deal.

Do you notice the same lines in both the NYC graph and violent crime/100,000 graph? It's indisputable evidence of crime levels past and present and you have nothing other than jive. Save yourself some time next time and instead type out "fake news."
 
Murrmurr said:
"Probably just me but the title wording seems wrong."

Not just you. The headline is a disgrace to journalism.
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You picked up on the intent of why I posted this. The original headline was much better.

Mothers attacked by baseball-bat wielding children as San Francisco crime wave intensifies

Notice the original article was generated in the UK one day before MSN picked it up from a Fox News follow up. No mystery that news sources use sensational headlines to get readers attention, nothing new there. If anything Fox News following up on an article generated outside of America shows me that what goes on in America even in isolated instances like this particular story, is being watched & reported in other countries.
 
Knight said:
You picked up on the intent of why I posted this. The original headline was much better.

Mothers attacked by baseball-bat wielding children as San Francisco crime wave intensifies

Notice the original article was generated in the UK one day before MSN picked it up from a Fox News follow up. No mystery that news sources use sensational headlines to get readers attention, nothing new there. If anything Fox News following up on an article generated outside of America shows me that what goes on in America even in isolated instances like this particular story, is being watched & reported in other countries.
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Coen, the correspondent to the Telegraph, is someone who hocks her stories around all and sundry. Sadly, the Telegraph article is behind a paywall for me here in the UK, I was curious to know what her sources were. This is a classic case where someone, somewhere, writes a story, and then the internet goes around copying and disseminating it everywhere. MSN credited Fox, which is lazy if the source was actually The Telegraph, which just goes to show how sad they really are. The Telegraph is also another right wing paper.

What I also found strange is that in Oct. 2022 you'll find several stories that residents in San Fran were arming themselves with baseball bats to combat crime. :D
 
seadoug said:
Thank you @Lethe200, @VaughanJB and @OlderThanDirt for bringing some actual perspective to the situation.

We visited friends in San Francisco this past summer. They live on a hill overlooking The Castro. We walked to restaurants and grocery stores and hiked every day. They technically live in San Francisco. It was idyllic.

The Tenderloin is one of the major areas being affected by crime, but then it has always been known for crime and drugs. The inner cities of many large cities have more crime. One cannot paint an entire city with the same brush, regardless of what some sensational news channels are saying. One could say the same about Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City, etc. Again, thanks for putting things into perspective.
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Yup. We have family and friends there and go often. I lived there for 16 years and my husband grew up there. It's a city, and like all cities has its problems - It's mostly gorgeous, although, sadly unaffordable. When I lived there (70s-80s) it was so much cheaper than NYC- Now it's the same. Unaffordable for most folks. My friends who bought houses there back in the day are in great shape, though. It's a beautiful city.
 
VaughanJB said:
Coen, the correspondent to the Telegraph, is someone who hocks her stories around all and sundry. Sadly, the Telegraph article is behind a paywall for me here in the UK, I was curious to know what her sources were. This is a classic case where someone, somewhere, writes a story, and then the internet goes around copying and disseminating it everywhere. MSN credited Fox, which is lazy if the source was actually The Telegraph, which just goes to show how sad they really are. The Telegraph is also another right wing paper.

What I also found strange is that in Oct. 2022 you'll find several stories that residents in San Fran were arming themselves with baseball bats to combat crime. :D
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I think it was yesterday when The Telegraph reported that Russia's president Putin had a cardiac arrest and was rushed to a hospital.

Didn't happen.
 
The overall crime rate decreased in SF from 2019-2020. But, the number of homicides increased by 17% and the number of auto thefts increased by 34% in the same period. It is different for every city and such. You can get data for your area at the "Crime Data Explorer."
 
againstthegrain said:
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You are conflating charging of a crime w the occurrence of a crime.

Murder is a crime that can't be manipulated. It's still a murder even if no one is ever charged or bargained down to a lesser offense in a plea deal.

Do you notice the same lines in both the NYC graph and violent crime/100,000 graph? It's indisputable evidence of crime levels past and present and you have nothing other than jive. Save yourself some time next time and instead type out "fake news."
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With murder yes but in places that raised the dollar amounts for felony theft vs misdemeanor theft how are they reported? One big category for theft?

Also many departments don't report their statistics to the FBI. In 2021 a report showed only 63% of departments reported data. Under reported crime has been a issue. Alot of places don't report crime commted on a college campus because they referred to campus police.

https://www.npr.org/2022/10/27/1131825858/us-crime-data-midterm-elections

There was a scandal in 1990s in which a big college with a city campus was under reporting crime some say not to scare off applicants, liability etc. They're supposed to report and record crime but in many cases a stolen purse might be classified as a missing purse. Also alot of calls/incidents from students get referred to campus police right away.
 
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WhatInThe said:
With murder yes but in places that raised the dollar amounts for felony theft vs misdemeanor theft how are they reported? One big category for theft?

Also many departments don't report their statistics to the FBI. In 2021 a report showed only 63% of departments reported data. Under reported crime has been a issue. Alot of places don't report crime commted on a college campus because they referred to campus police.

https://www.npr.org/2022/10/27/1131825858/us-crime-data-midterm-elections

There was a scandal in 1990s in which a big college with a city campus was under reporting crime some say not to scare off applicants, liability etc. They're supposed to report and record crime but in many cases a stolen purse might be classified as a missing purse. Also alot of calls/incidents from students get referred to campus police right away.
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Violent crimes don't need a $$$ amount to distinguish them from non-violent crimes.

Again you have nothing but distractions and stories........
 
VaughanJB said:
Coen, the correspondent to the Telegraph, is someone who hocks her stories around all and sundry. Sadly, the Telegraph article is behind a paywall for me here in the UK, I was curious to know what her sources were. This is a classic case where someone, somewhere, writes a story, and then the internet goes around copying and disseminating it everywhere. MSN credited Fox, which is lazy if the source was actually The Telegraph, which just goes to show how sad they really are. The Telegraph is also another right wing paper.

What I also found strange is that in Oct. 2022 you'll find several stories that residents in San Fran were arming themselves with baseball bats to combat crime. :D
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Is it fair to say the basis of the article is true? I don't see anything political in the article, can you point out where in the article a political party is involved?

As for residents arming themselves with bats. Kind of useless as the Indians discovered. Indians used bows & arrows against guns. Wooden sticks against bullets didn't work to well.

You would think that would b a lessoned learned. I googled this and saw to many references to cherry pick just one as an example.
youth gangs in san francisco armed with weapons - Google Search
 
The FBI switched over to the National Inccident Based Reporting System in 2022, only 24% of law enforcement agencies in New York state are using it. Probably a similar percentage in other states.

The Justice Department has a self reporting crime victim survey that indicates a much higher violent crime rate in New York state than reported by the FBI.

There’s a lot of theft that’s not reported.

NCVS Dashboard
 
So I guess what we’re saying is that if I go to San Francisco, I now shouldn’t wear some flowers in my hair despite the song? Should I wear combat boots Instead?

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Actress Emily Blunt (The Devil Wears Prada, Gideon's Daughter, Charlie Wilson's War) is a stutterer.

Acting helped her overcome it, and now she wants to co-write and star in a film about a stutterer.
 
Rich said:
Honestly, it's a bit difficult, perhaps even foolish, to trust Fox. They lied about election fraud, they could not produce any evidence to back up their lies and they were subsequently fined $787,500,000. The owner of Fox (Murdoch) admitted that they lied. Not exactly Walter Cronkite level new. Moreover, the endorse Tucker Carlson, Hannity, etc., folks that love nothing more than stirring up the crowd. They're disgraceful.

https://www.npr.org/2023/02/28/1159...ion-voting-rupert-murdoch-2020-election-fraud
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Read thru the article you used to prove the article about [San Francisco Turns into 'American Disgrace'—Youths Assault and Steal from Moms Using Baseball Bats] by Fox news was false.

Couldn't find any reference to that. I did Google your source & found this.

Is NPR a scholarly source? No. NPR and other news agencies report the news, sometimes with bias. They may interview experts, but a true scholarly source will be written by an expert.
 
hearlady said:
I think it should be: "Youths try to steal and assault Moms but Moms fight back with baseball bats.....and win." If only.
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If anyone would come near and have bad intertions, regardless of age, I would fight back. I did not carry a bat but I did have a 3 inch round piece of wood about 4 foot long in my trunk, I only had to pull it once when someone got to close at the grocery. They were asking for money but I was not taking any chances. The baby was in the car while I was putting groceries in the trunk. They went away once I had that in my hand, I was not kidding, you could see it on my face.
 
I think some of us are getting old and not remembering the past very well. Here's a bit of an old news article from 1956 (back in the perfect old days when parents spanked kids and everyone had a tremendous work ethic, etc):

Fifty organized gangs of teenagers – some of them numbering 50 to 75 members – roam the streets of El Paso nightly now.​
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Their operations: beatings, stabbings, zip-gun shootings, thefts, burglaries, vandalism, auto thefts, drinking.​
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Their field of operations: from the crossroads to Ysleta; from 13th Street to Mountain View.​
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So far this year the rat packs have shot one person with a zip-gun, severely beaten several and stabbed at least eight who have had to go to the hospital for treatment.​
 

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