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As a recent arrival to SF, I have many of the usual suspects to comment on, Muni, noise, trash, street conditions, etc., etc. But the SINGLE biggest issue I have, is the lack of police presence in certain parts of the city. I am frankly astounded that there are not more patrols on upper Haight street near the park/Amoeba/Red Vic/Escape from NY, etc. I have witnessed more assaults in a few months here than at any time in my life. And it is on the SAME 3 blocks, yet I RARELY see routine patrols. Not even at 2 when everything closes and all of these different (intoxicated) populations of people are mixing on the dark streets - something that every other small city and college town has figured out. I spend a lot of time at home, and I’ve been looking out my window enough that even I can pick out the repeat offenders now. It shouldn’t matter that this happens to be a "tourist" area, but that does make the situation even more dumbfounding. You’d think that if nothing else, a city that depends on tourist revenue so much, would care somewhat about the image this projects. After just witnessing yet another innocent victim get jumped for walking on the wrong side of the street in broad daylight with about 2 dozen "homeless" people involved, I am seriously thinking about moving from this neighborhood soon when my lease is up. And when the police FINALLY show up and see him bloodied in the middle of the intersection at Haight@Cole, they seem to have no clue what to do. Even I can tell that the guy with the tattoo on his face walking down the street swinging a heavy duty lock on a chain is not about to lock up his non-existent bike. It takes about 2 weeks of observation to learn all of the faces and the hierarchy, and there definitely is one. This isn’t a rant about the homeless/transient population, I knew what I was getting into when I moved here in terms of music, panhandling, etc., but the routine violence is a whole other matter. I really think that if this were in any other neighborhood, it would be considered gang activity and we would have a task force. We can’t even get a foot patrol? For the record, I am a young male, who’s lived in many more "dangerous" neighborhoods on the east coat, including throughout NYC, but I have never seen anything like this with seemingly little to no police reaction. Oh look, the cop cars drive away, and here are the same dozen people and their dogs, assembled right back where they were. I’m taking odds on when the next cruiser drives by, I guarantee it won’t be soon. Thanks for reading, any suggestions welcome.
Name Withheld
- : 4.5
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April 18th, 2007 at 8:17 am
Every day I walk these same streets, as I have for what, 20 years now? 24 if you count the frequent visits while getting schooling in Berkeley…and why have I never seen all this crime?
There WAS one alley - behind the apartments on Geary street at Polk, Cedar Alley. THAT place was like, haunted. Someone was always getting shot there, I’d hear screams sometimes. But Haight? That place is full of cops. Know what scares away a lot of those tourists? “Too many cops on Haight Street. Not enough good places to see bands. Too much junk, no buds-and-doses.” And the travelling Red State-marooned hippies go to Seattle or Portland instead. It’s not just the Union City tourism that brings the money here.
Haight is far, far too clean. It happened so fast, suddenly it’s Union Street with peace signs. Oy. Nothing wrong with hosing the dirt off the sidewalk, but that’s where the cleanup ought to stop. Same ten people? Are you sure you aren’t making them angry? Just a safety tip, seriously. If you can recognise them, they probably can recognise YOU, if in fact they are the same ten people. (You…count them?)
April 18th, 2007 at 6:19 pm
San Francisco has something like 2,000+ cops. I have yet to see one actually walking in our neighboorhood. Oh, I did see a cop car illegally parked by a fire hydrant with the car empty and the windows rolled down while the cop was in Atlas Cafe waiting in line for some coffee. First cop I’ve seen on foot in the year and a half I’ve lived here.
I went to the Police Commission meeting in the Castro a few months back.
Of course, I was late because the fact the meeting had been moved to the “field” was never actually communicated within City Hall. The daily calendar in the lobby still said the meeting was right there at 6PM. So I went to Room 200 or 400, only to find it closed and no one there having a clue where the meeting had been moved.
Once I got to the meeting, it seems all the folks in the Castro knew their cops by name and had nothing but great things to say about “their” police force.
Of course, the Castro is a very politically active area, many people living there have quite a bit of disposable income to contribute to organizations, causes and politicians. There is a wonderfulyl viable retail business community there. And there is unanimty over gay rights and a justifable intolerace of any gay bashing or gay baiting that takes place as a result of outside agitators. so, thye get lots of police attention and of course, they love the police. The neighborhood has low crime, it’s clean, there is little graffiti, not a lot of illegal trash dumping, etc.
So, the Castro gets a lot of attantion from City Hall.
Compare that to the forgotten area called the Mission. Here live working class people who struggle to make a living but who just don’t have the same “political juice” as the Castro does to get things like police foot patrols. Plus, there is a lack of a strong retail business community in the area east of Mission Street and west of Potrero St. Everything is somewhat spread out, with most of the businesses being restaurants and liquor stores. Unlike the Castro, there are few or no boutiques, clothing stores, photo shops, bookstores, etc. It’s a struggling area with great potential. But it gets little or no proactive attention for the police department. We are the area they drive through at high speed on the way to SF General to file their reports on all the shootings.
I really don’t know who to blame, so I’ll blame the mayor, since the buck stops with him.
When I talk to individual cops, they seem frustrated that when they arrest someone, Kamela Harris and the judges will let them off. After all, SF sends fewer felons to state prison per capita than any other major metropolitan area in California. So maybe the cops are right.
At the same time, Heather Fong strikes me as very ineffective and the street cops have no respect for her leadership. The whole department seems to be managed by metrics and statistics and not much else. Police are doing a good job when the number of murders or muggings goes down and are doing a bad job when the number goes up.
But to me, those metrics only tell a part of the story. What about the simple quality of day to day life. There are no metrics for petty crime, most of which never gets reported to the police.
The smashed car widdows, the graffiti, the trash, the filth, none of it seems to count in the giant police scorecard that everyone at the Hall of Justice and City Hall seem to use to measure police effectiveness.
Then again, our cops are known for their nepotism, racism, brutality and most of them don’t actually live amongst us anyway.
So, you’ve got ineffective leaderhsip running an out of control, corrupt, non-resident, brutal, demoralized racist police force and a namby-pamby DA and soft judges who seem to buy into the whole “Gee, it’s only because I’m poor that I (pick one); steal stuff that isn’t mine, do drugs/booze and am addicted, break into cars, paint/spray my mark everywhere, dump my trash on the sidewalk, join a gang, shoot people, etc. All being measured by a scorecard that’s not a real ruler for how “safe” it is to live here.
As one poster here said, San Francisco is simply a sleazy mess and Gavin hasn’t done much to make it any less so.
This site only shows up because he’s running for re-election. I’ve watched the so called community meetings videos on youtube.com and haven’t been very impressed with Gavin’s performance.
I want to see action, not a bunch of glittering generalities and platittudes. Action, Gavin, ACTION!!! Get your reports to do the job they were hired to do or fire them and get someone else. Let everyone know you will no longer tolerate just getting by. You will no longer tolerate in-action, in-competance, or in-fighting. No more grand yet unfunded ideas, no more trial ballons, ACTION! (Credit where credit is due: 311 works! Good job!)
BTW, anyone know where we can get a schedule so we’ll know where Gavin is appearing next to talk to the people? These community apperances don’t seem to be publicized anywhere, including on this site.