Cash App founder stabbed to death in San Francisco

[Dahobbs 17,534]

6 minutes ago, TornACL said:

If it is, I see why she cheats on him because he's a total cuck.

Pretty sure she is a beard. 

[BabaYaga 15,298]

23 minutes ago, BabaYaga said:

 

Same goes for you @Nicole44.....

[Bojack 2,081]

22 hours ago, ChickenSandwich said:

2020 Homicides : NYC 460

1.52 per sq mile

2020 Homicides : State of Alabama 470

.89 per sq mile

 

Excellent point.  Mad Max movies and The Road depict communities with low murder rates since so few people live in such a large area.  

[YGIFS 19,450]

so to solve for homicides, we should all move from urban areas of high crime and high density with low square mileage to rural areas of low crime and low density with large square mileage.  

So his solution is for humanity to move en masse for safety purposes and create these new, densely packed urban centers.  That we could perhaps call "cities"?

I'm kinda the impression he's trying for like a Nick Adams bit.  It's not polished or nuanced, but it's not terrible.  He's got some potential.  Either to be funny or be marked as the dumbest fucking poster on Surly......which is really saying something.

[Bojack 2,081]

In the unfinished Season 6 of The Wire, the new mayor jukes the crime stats by annexing several thousand square miles of Atlantic Ocean.

[YGIFS 19,450]

I think it was how they lowered the crime rate in "Chinatown" with Jack Nicholson.  

"If you can't take the crime out of Los Angeles, Mr. Geddes.  Well then, you take Los Angeles away from the crime"

Maybe it was water.  I dunno.  I was drinking a lot back then.  

[We’reTexas 1,473]

 

[TornACL 7,698]

43 minutes ago, YGIFS said:

m kinda the impression he's trying for like a Nick Adams bit.  It's not polished or nuanced, but it's not terrible.  He's got some potential.  Either to be funny or be marked as the dumbest fucking poster on Surly......which is really saying something.

He's the sociopolitical Futureman.

[Macanudo 12,979]

Why is this news?  Outside of  tech bros, hardly anyone knew who Lee was before he was killed.   One off murders happen all the time everywhere.   So why?

[We’reTexas 1,473]

12 minutes ago, Macanudo said:

Why is this news?  Outside of  tech bros, hardly anyone knew who Lee was before he was killed.   One off murders happen all the time everywhere.   So why?

[Hermanator 7,050]

1 hour ago, TornACL said:

He's the sociopolitical Futureman.

Chicken Sandwich is Futureman?

[ChickenSandwich 9,836]

4 hours ago, Bojack said:

Excellent point.  Mad Max movies and The Road depict communities with low murder rates since so few people live in such a large area.  

If Max Max was looking for oil, and he could search 52,000 square miles of land for 500 barrels of oil or he could search 300 sq miles of land for 480 barrels of oil, where should he search?

[Dahobbs 17,534]

6 minutes ago, ChickenSandwich said:

If Max Max was looking for oil, and he could search 52,000 square miles of land for 500 barrels of oil or he could search 300 sq miles of land for 480 barrels of oil, where should he search?

Seriously, this is a bit, no? No one is actually this stupid.

[Dahobbs 17,534]

On 4/16/2023 at 7:34 PM, ChickenSandwich said:

2020 Homicides : NYC 460

1.52 per sq mile

2020 Homicides : State of Alabama 470

.89 per sq mile

 

Let's say there are two boats. Each has 1,000 people in it, and one boat is twice as big in terms of volume. Pirates takeover both boats and say they are going to kill a number of people at random on each of them. Do you want to be on the boat where 5 people will be killed or the one where 15 people will be killed?  If I told you the one where 15 will die is the bigger boat, does that affect your decision?  

[bolverk 29,672]

6 minutes ago, ChickenSandwich said:

If Max Max was looking for oil, and he could search 52,000 square miles of land for 500 barrels of oil or he could search 300 sq miles of land for 480 barrels of oil, where should he search?

We get it, dude. You're scared of cities, you know, where people actually live and humans interact. That's fine though. Stay hidden in your remote, secluded compound in rural Alabama and away from the rest of human society.

Keeping you isolated and away from humanity would probably be safer for us all because when people like you intermingle with civilization, there's a higher likelihood with each interaction that violence would occur as opposed to among socially adjusted city dwellers who are less likely to kill one another.

That's your argument. Stay away from people.

[Zepol87 9,186]

2 hours ago, Macanudo said:

Why is this news?  Outside of  tech bros, hardly anyone knew who Lee was before he was killed.   One off murders happen all the time everywhere.   So why?

Because liberal cities and homeless!!!

[ChickenSandwich 9,836]

25 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

Let's say there are two boats. Each has 1,000 people in it, and one boat is twice as big in terms of volume. Pirates takeover both boats and say they are going to kill a number of people at random on each of them. Do you want to be on the boat where 5 people will be killed or the one where 15 people will be killed?  If I told you the one where 15 will die is the bigger boat, does that affect your decision?  

 More people more crime. Another vote for NYC being a better location to hold a conference on violent crime than any city in Alabama. 
 

*Could make argument for Gulf Shores

Edited April 18, 2023 by ChickenSandwich

[Dahobbs 17,534]

Just now, ChickenSandwich said:

 More people more crime. Another vote for NYC being a better location to hold a conference on violent crime than any city in Alabama. 
 

 

Answer the question: why does the size of the boat matter in that scenario? 

Actually, you do realize the very stats you quoted disagree with your assertion here? New York City has many more people than Alabama and less homicides (460 is less than 470). 

[tbone_ 14,123]

I want to homicide this whole fucking thread Jesus fucking Christ

[bolverk 29,672]

2 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

Answer the question: why does the size of the boat matter in that scenario? 

Actually, you do realize the very stats you quoted disagree with your assertion here? New York City has many more people than Alabama and less homicides (460 is less than 470). 

The only math he cares about it is the number of people, not the differing statistical probabilities of violence among the individuals from the two separate universe populations. He's likely just a miserable misanthrope who apparently isn't able to overcome his overwhelming fear of other people. He possibly also has a crushing anxiety disorder, so we should probably just have little pity on him.

[Dahobbs 17,534]

13 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

Answer the question: why does the size of the boat matter in that scenario? 

Actually, you do realize the very stats you quoted disagree with your assertion here? New York City has many more people than Alabama and less homicides (460 is less than 470). 

Fewer homicides damn it. 

[Born to Run 6,569]

Don't switch the blade on the tech guy who may be your lover, oh no. 

You got it made on the tech guy in shades Oh no?

[Born to Run 6,569]

Why do you think that?

I love the bay area and will enjoy a month out there this summer?

[aggie08 21,504]

53 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

Seriously, this is a bit, no? No one is actually this stupid.

It's a bit.

 

...but he's also this stupid.

[JesusSweatDuck 17,781]

15 hours ago, TornACL said:

If it is, I see why she cheats on him because he's a total cuck.

Jimbo?

[Foosters 17,856]

https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2023-04-19/the-bob-lee-killing-in-s-f-shows-how-crime-reporting-gets-everything-wrong

Quote

Rushes to judgment seldom come at you any faster than the commentary about the killing of tech entrepreneur Bob Lee in a deserted neighborhood of San Francisco early on the morning of April 4.

The stabbing death of Lee was almost instantaneously taken as confirmation of an emerging narrative about the city — dirty, dangerous, unlivable. Lee’s friends and business acquaintances knew whom to blame: San Francisco’s liberal politicians.

“Chesa Boudin, & the criminal-loving city council that enabled him & a lawless SF for years, have Bob’s literal blood on their hands,” tweeted venture investor Matt Ocko, naming the progressive district attorney who was turned out of office in a recall vote last year.

Elon Musk’s take on the incident, aimed at Boudin’s “tough on crime” successor as D.A., was widely quoted. “Many people I know have been severely assaulted,” he tweeted. “Violent crime in SF is horrific and even if attackers are caught, they are often released immediately. Is the city taking stronger action to incarcerate repeat violent offenders @BrookeJenkinsSF?”

Newspapers and cable news programs piled on. Not all jumped to the same conclusion as Ocko and Musk, but instead exploited the killing to remind readers and viewers of the “concerns” that had been aired over violent crime in the city, and how those had ostensibly led to Boudin’s recall.

As it turned out, of course, Lee’s stabbing death seems to have had nothing to do with street crime or prosecutorial laxity or coddled criminals or “repeat violent offenders.” The April 13 arrest of a fellow tech worker in connection with the crime suggests that the assault was the outcome of a dispute between Lee (who had moved to Miami) and the alleged assailant (an Emeryville resident) over Lee’s relationship with the latter’s sister.

Superficially, then, the initial coverage of Lee’s killing appears to be a case of what the great press critic A.J. Liebling once labeled “the futility of flapdoodle.” It’s what happens when uninformed or misinformed sources run wild, equipped with little but received wisdom.

That San Francisco was overrun by violent criminals was taken as gospel; a predawn killing in a deserted part of town was shoehorned into the prevailing narrative.

Never mind that the narrative itself is untrue. As my colleague Summer Lin reported, violent crime in San Francisco — homicide, rape, robbery and aggravated assault — peaked in 2013, and by 2020, the last year for which statistics have been released, cases had fallen by about 32%.

The city recorded 56 homicides in 2022, according to the Major Cities Police Chiefs Assn. But that was fewer than in other cities of a similar size, including Denver (88 homicides), Nashville (108) and Columbus, Ohio (140).

In fact, says civil rights lawyer Alec Karakatsanis, a close analyst of law enforcement narratives through his indispensable Copaganda Newsletter on Substack, San Francisco is one of the safest big cities in America.

“Once a news theme is generated,” Karakatsanis told me, “reporters and editors see everything through the prism of that theme. There’s a theme about disorder and drugs and homelessness in San Francisco which is not about whether those things are objectively true, but more about how our brains are processing discrete actual examples.”

As it happens, the killing of Bob Lee appears to conform more to the truth about violent crime — that it most often involves people who know each other rather than strangers on the street. But you wouldn’t know that from how the killing has been reported.

The problem is worse than simply the mischaracterization of a single high-profile crime. It’s part of a long-term phenomenon in which the public’s fear of random violence has been fed by law enforcement advocates to burnish the image of police as the only bulwark against a perilously unpredictable world.

The harvest has been a militarization of police forces, the creation of SWAT teams and the assembling of fleets of armored vehicles.

“The ‘stranger danger’ theme is very beneficial to police because it’s hard for police to make arguments to acquire military equipment and surveillance apparatus if most violent crime is committed by family members or friends,” Karakatsanis says. “It starts to feel like a social problem that requires a very different public health intervention.”

Depictions of American cities as hives of remorseless human predators have taken on a distinctly ideological cast in recent years. At first they were employed to push back against long-overdue progressive criminal justice reforms.

The Boudin recall was exploited as Exhibit A for the case that voters were exasperated with the disorder that reform had brought.

I compiled some of this commentary at the time:

“Most San Franciscans just realized that doctrinaire progressivism had become a suicide pact,” wrote Daniel Henninger of the Wall Street Journal, declaring an end to “a major city’s long transition to flowers-in-your-hair progressivism.”

Yet there were few signs that voters actually opposed those reforms. In Alameda County across the bay, civil rights attorney Pamela Price was elected district attorney and Yesenia Sanchez won her race for sheriff without facing a runoff, despite espousing progressive reforms similar to Boudin’s.

The general public, moreover, agreed with many of Boudin’s signature policies, according to a poll taken shortly before the recall, including his efforts to protect worker rights, review past cases for possible wrongful convictions and end the practice of cash bail. His loss in the recall was more properly attributed to a focused campaign against him heavily financed by real estate developers and agents.

Pro-reform campaigns have continued to prevail, most recently in the election of Brandon Johnson as mayor of Chicago after a campaign in which he opposed the conventional anti-crime nostrum of hiring more police officers but advocated instead addressing the “root causes” of crime through citywide youth hiring, reopening mental health centers and investing in violence prevention.

In the current political cycle, urban crime has become an even more partisan issue. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) tried to play it for all it’s worth Monday by holding a hearing on violent crime in Manhattan, part of his campaign to interfere with the prosecution of Donald Trump by Manhattan Dist. Atty. Alvin Bragg.

Jordan’s effort fell flat, however, in part because Jim Kessler of the centrist think tank Third Way came to the witness stand armed with data showing that “New York City’s murder rate was 18% below the national average” and that the murder rate was 59% higher in Ohio than in New York and 251% higher in Louisiana, another red state.

“If we wanted a hearing about the ravages of crime,” Kessler asked, “why aren’t we in Baton Rouge or Louisville, where five people were murdered in the blink of an eye in a mass shooting at a downtown bank” on April 11?

The partisan cabaret of politicians like Jordan narrow the definition of “crime waves” to encompass categories that can be blamed, in the public mind, on a predatory underclass largely of Black perpetrators. That ignores crimes that are more commonly classed as “white collar” offenses — the victims of which are often low-income and minority people.

“In the elite liberal mind,” Karakatsanis says, “when people talk about ‘crime,’ what they’re talking about is disorder in the form of homelessness and schizophrenia on the street and drug selling. They’re not talking about child sexual abuse or tax evasion or environmental pollution. Whenever there’s a toxic dumping story, it’s not seen as part of a crime wave.”

Accounts of “crime waves” such as what is ostensibly happening in San Francisco are dependent on discrete incidents that can be cited for their genuinely horrific effect on victims and their families; Jordan gave four such victims a platform at his hearing Monday. But they distort the actual situation. That’s not in the public interest.

News organizations and local politicians are often complicit in defining crime as face-to-face encounters among strangers. It’s rare for local political leaders to react to a high-profile violent attack by downplaying the gravity of a purported crime wave, lest they be saddled with that all-too-effective label of being “soft on crime.”

San Francisco politicians were unusual in pushing back against the image of their city as a violent hellhole in the aftermath of Lee’s killing.

“I do think it’s unfortunate that we’re seeing this narrative that San Francisco is some exceptionally violent place,” state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) said. “That’s not true.”

Added San Francisco Police Commissioner Kevin Benedicto: “Overall, if you look at the last five years and 10 years on a longer-term scale, crime is at a historic low.” The city, he said, “is unfairly portrayed as being in the midst of a crime wave that isn’t borne out of the data.”

They may have been willing to challenge the narrative because they perceived that it was being aired by outsiders on social media, not by their own constituents.

The killing of Bob Lee is that rare case in which the prevailing narrative was flatly and swiftly contradicted by subsequent events. But it’s unlikely that it will eradicate the impression that San Francisco has descended into chaos. The impression is too often repeated and too colorful. From the standpoint of public health and safety, that’s too bad.

 

[mdmost 43,001]

On 4/17/2023 at 11:52 PM, Born to Run said:

On 4/14/2023 at 9:38 AM, mdmost said:

Don't switch the blade on the tech guy who may be your lover, oh no. 

You got it made on the tech guy in shades Oh no?

That guy tried to hook up with your sister and get her on drugs, oh no. 

[Bevo 13,577]

1 hour ago, Foosters said:

 

Ha, ha.. That article was funny. I'm guessing that these conservatives that the article kept referring to were actually liberals. I doubt the majority of Bay Area Tech guys voted for Trump.

 

Here’s the final tally of where tech billionaires donated for the 2020 election

Published Mon, Nov 2 20208:42 PM ESTUpdated Fri, Nov 6 20206:53 AM EST

Ari Levy@levynews

 

• About 98% of political contributions from internet companies this cycle went to Democrats, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
• The CEOs of Asana, Twilio and Netflix were among the biggest contributors, and they all targeted Democratic groups and candidates.
• Super PACs focused on flipping the Senate in favor of Democrats and winning in swing states received millions of dollars from tech execs.

Tech executives, rich from an 11-year bull market that’s disproportionately benefited their industry, were among the top political donors in the 2020 cycle. The vast majority of that money went to getting President Donald Trump out of office and helping Democrats take control of the Senate.

Asana CEO Dustin Moskovitz, who made his fortunes as a Facebook co-founder, spent about $24 million. Twilio CEO Jeff Lawson and his wife, Erica, donated about $7 million. Along with former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who donated about $6 million, they’re some of the leading contributors to Future Forward USA, a super PAC behind Joe Biden’s presidential effort.

Of current CEOs at large-cap tech companies, Netflix’s Reed Hastings opened his wallet the widest. Hastings and his wife, Patty Quillin, donated more than $5 million. The biggest chunk went to the Senate Majority PAC, a group backing Democratic candidates in the closest races, like in Maine, Texas and Iowa. Democrats head into election day with a 53-47 deficit in the Senate.

Between funds to campaigns and outside groups, employees from internet companies committed 98% of their contributions to Democrats, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. California and Washington, the major technology centers, have long been Democratic strongholds, but the disparity in the tech industry is even greater this year because of antipathy towards President Trump’s policies on immigration, trade and climate change, as well as his handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

“While attending the rally is voluntary, Trump and his administration is literally killing Americans,” LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman tweeted on Sunday.

Hoffman, a partner at venture firm Greylock Partners, contributed about $14 million, including $2 million to the Senate Majority PAC and $1 million each to Biden backers Unite the Country and American Bridge 21st Century.

The heftiest contributions are all to super PACs, because campaign finance laws restrict individual donations to campaigns to $2,800 per election. However, thanks to the Citizens United Supreme Court decision in 2010, there’s no legal limit on how much a person can contribute to a super PAC.

While Hoffman may be the most outspoken venture capitalist when it comes to politics, a number of Silicon Valley’s most prominent investors also wrote seven-figure checks. Vinod Khosla donated $1 million each to the Senate Majority PAC and American Bridge 21st Century. Michael Moritz of Sequoia Capital has contributed over $3 million, including $1.5 million to Pacronym, which is focused on backing Democrats in closely-contested states.

Jessica Livingston, co-founder of start-up incubator Y Combinator, donated $5 million to Tech for Campaigns, which provides digital and technical assistance to Democratic groups.

The biggest Republican funder in tech this year is venture capitalist Peter Thiel, but the bulk of his money went to a losing effort. Thiel, who worked on Trump’s initial campaign in 2016, contributed more than $2 million to the Free Forever PAC, dedicated to electing Republican Kris Kobach to the Senate in Kansas. Kobach lost in the primary earlier this year.

Retired execs and less prominent names

Google’s Schmidt and former Microsoft

CEO Steve Ballmer, who now owns the NBA’s Los Angeles Clippers, have been among the biggest spenders in the group of retired industry executives. Ballmer and his wife, Connie, contributed $7 million to Everytown for Gun Safety, which supports Biden and congressional candidates working toward gun reform.

Irwin Jacobs, the billionaire co-founder and former CEO of Qualcomm, donated close to $7 million this cycle with his wife, Joan. Their money has gone towards the Democrat groups Senate Majority PAC and House Majority PAC.

They’ve also committed $3 million to Forward California, a group mostly focused on getting their granddaughter, Sara Jacobs, elected to the House of Representatives in the state’s 53rd district in San Diego County. She’s facing fellow Democrat Georgette Gomez in an effort to succeed the retiring Susan Davis.

Some of tech’s top spenders are not as well known as Schmidt, Ballmer and Jacobs.

Kenneth Duda, co-founder of networking company Arista, has donated about $4 million, primarily to American Bridge 21st Century and Pacronym. Marc Merrill, co-founder of Riot Games, which was acquired by China’s Tencent in 2011, has contributed over $1 million to Unite America, a group that supports congressional candidates in both parties.

 

[Foosters 17,856]

2 minutes ago, Bevo said:

Ha, ha.. That article was funny. I'm guessing that these conservatives that the article kept referring to were actually liberals. I doubt the majority of Bay Area Tech guys voted for Trump.

 

Here’s the final tally of where tech billionaires donated for the 2020 election

Published Mon, Nov 2 20208:42 PM ESTUpdated Fri, Nov 6 20206:53 AM EST

Ari Levy@levynews

 

• About 98% of political contributions from internet companies this cycle went to Democrats, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
• The CEOs of Asana, Twilio and Netflix were among the biggest contributors, and they all targeted Democratic groups and candidates.
• Super PACs focused on flipping the Senate in favor of Democrats and winning in swing states received millions of dollars from tech execs.

Tech executives, rich from an 11-year bull market that’s disproportionately benefited their industry, were among the top political donors in the 2020 cycle. The vast majority of that money went to getting President Donald Trump out of office and helping Democrats take control of the Senate.

Asana CEO Dustin Moskovitz, who made his fortunes as a Facebook co-founder, spent about $24 million. Twilio CEO Jeff Lawson and his wife, Erica, donated about $7 million. Along with former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who donated about $6 million, they’re some of the leading contributors to Future Forward USA, a super PAC behind Joe Biden’s presidential effort.

Of current CEOs at large-cap tech companies, Netflix’s Reed Hastings opened his wallet the widest. Hastings and his wife, Patty Quillin, donated more than $5 million. The biggest chunk went to the Senate Majority PAC, a group backing Democratic candidates in the closest races, like in Maine, Texas and Iowa. Democrats head into election day with a 53-47 deficit in the Senate.

Between funds to campaigns and outside groups, employees from internet companies committed 98% of their contributions to Democrats, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. California and Washington, the major technology centers, have long been Democratic strongholds, but the disparity in the tech industry is even greater this year because of antipathy towards President Trump’s policies on immigration, trade and climate change, as well as his handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

“While attending the rally is voluntary, Trump and his administration is literally killing Americans,” LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman tweeted on Sunday.

Hoffman, a partner at venture firm Greylock Partners, contributed about $14 million, including $2 million to the Senate Majority PAC and $1 million each to Biden backers Unite the Country and American Bridge 21st Century.

The heftiest contributions are all to super PACs, because campaign finance laws restrict individual donations to campaigns to $2,800 per election. However, thanks to the Citizens United Supreme Court decision in 2010, there’s no legal limit on how much a person can contribute to a super PAC.

While Hoffman may be the most outspoken venture capitalist when it comes to politics, a number of Silicon Valley’s most prominent investors also wrote seven-figure checks. Vinod Khosla donated $1 million each to the Senate Majority PAC and American Bridge 21st Century. Michael Moritz of Sequoia Capital has contributed over $3 million, including $1.5 million to Pacronym, which is focused on backing Democrats in closely-contested states.

Jessica Livingston, co-founder of start-up incubator Y Combinator, donated $5 million to Tech for Campaigns, which provides digital and technical assistance to Democratic groups.

The biggest Republican funder in tech this year is venture capitalist Peter Thiel, but the bulk of his money went to a losing effort. Thiel, who worked on Trump’s initial campaign in 2016, contributed more than $2 million to the Free Forever PAC, dedicated to electing Republican Kris Kobach to the Senate in Kansas. Kobach lost in the primary earlier this year.

Retired execs and less prominent names

Google’s Schmidt and former Microsoft

CEO Steve Ballmer, who now owns the NBA’s Los Angeles Clippers, have been among the biggest spenders in the group of retired industry executives. Ballmer and his wife, Connie, contributed $7 million to Everytown for Gun Safety, which supports Biden and congressional candidates working toward gun reform.

Irwin Jacobs, the billionaire co-founder and former CEO of Qualcomm, donated close to $7 million this cycle with his wife, Joan. Their money has gone towards the Democrat groups Senate Majority PAC and House Majority PAC.

They’ve also committed $3 million to Forward California, a group mostly focused on getting their granddaughter, Sara Jacobs, elected to the House of Representatives in the state’s 53rd district in San Diego County. She’s facing fellow Democrat Georgette Gomez in an effort to succeed the retiring Susan Davis.

Some of tech’s top spenders are not as well known as Schmidt, Ballmer and Jacobs.

Kenneth Duda, co-founder of networking company Arista, has donated about $4 million, primarily to American Bridge 21st Century and Pacronym. Marc Merrill, co-founder of Riot Games, which was acquired by China’s Tencent in 2011, has contributed over $1 million to Unite America, a group that supports congressional candidates in both parties.

 

I'm not sure what argument you're making. I posted the article as a follow up to 2 articles posted last week - one from NY Times and one from LA Times - that quoted 5 random tech execs to show that the city is embroiled in violence. It was more of a criticism of the legacy media as opposed to a political attack.

[ballrific 215]

Maybe the guy was stabbed because he was stabbing both the brother and the beard sister? Sounds like all of them were doing drugs together till 3am before the incident. Dont buy the "he gave drugs to my sister so I was so enraged I stabbed him in the chest 3 times". That's a different rage.

That theory doesn't seem too far out there but who knows

[bolverk 29,672]

4 minutes ago, Foosters said:

I'm not sure what argument you're making. I posted the article as a follow up to 2 articles posted last week - one from NY Times and one from LA Times - that quoted 5 random tech execs to show that the city is embroiled in violence. It was more of a criticism of the legacy media as opposed to a political attack.

@Bevo

Yeah, I took it as a criticism of the reflexive derision shown by media, and certainly a shitload of posters on Surly, that unfairly demonizes San Francisco as some sort of dangerous hellscape filled with deranged homeless along with how this attitude extends to some other major cities that people like to beat up on in spite of data indicating they're actually safer than other places that don't get called out.

Middle America just fucking loves to shit on San Francisco and NYC, just like a lot of Texans love to shit on Austin. It's the same shit.

[We’reTexas 1,473]

1 hour ago, Foosters said:

https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2023-04-19/the-bob-lee-killing-in-s-f-shows-how-crime-reporting-gets-everything-wrong

 

My problem with this take is he conflates the narrative of violent crime often expressed by national media, generally hyperbolic, and the debate within San Francisco, which is focused on property crime and perceptions of public safety; by debunking the former he effectively denies the validity of the latter (he wrote a very similar column after the Boudin recall IIRC). I only point this out because it’s the same approach employed by S.F. progressives, and it fundamentally misread the room and cost them the recall (although Hiltzik, like the Boudin camp, has been huffing the copium that it was all a right-wing conspiracy). 

IMO the core issue is the inherent tension progressive DA’s face doing their jobs once in office and how they handle the messaging. He points out Pamela Price, but has he been following the news at all lately? The New Yorker had a pretty good take this week:

Bob Lee’s Murder and San Francisco’s So-Called Crime Epidemic https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/bob-lees-murder-and-san-franciscos-so-called-crime-epidemic

Quote

OUR COLUMNISTS

BOB LEE’S MURDER AND SAN FRANCISCO’S SO-CALLED CRIME EPIDEMIC

The killing of a tech executive reveals the cycle of outrage that puts enormous pressure on progressive district attorneys.

By Jay Caspian Kang 
April 14, 2023

The stabbing death of the Cash App founder kicked up a storm of social-media influencers declaring that San Francisco has turned into a lawless pit of homelessness, drug addiction, and violent crime.Photograph by Victoria Smith / eyevine / Redux

 

The progressive prosecutor—Larry Krasner of Philadelphia; Kim Foxx of Cook County, Illinois; or Ramin Fatehi of Norfolk, Virginia, to name a few—serves under the influence of two seemingly conflicting truths. The first: a whole lot of people—especially the press and the police—blame their lenient bail and sentencing practices for every murder, robbery, and homeless encampment. The second: despite mostly bad press, public outcry, and the accusation from the right that they are pawns of George Soros, who has sent them to single-handedly turn America’s great cities into wastelands, they keep getting elected. Chesa Boudin, the former San Francisco district attorney who was removed from office via a recall vote, made the Bay Area an epicenter of debate over whether this movement of progressive prosecutors will actually break cycles of incarceration and usher in a better, more humane criminal-justice system or whether they will flood the streets with irredeemably violent criminals.

The region has seen two high-profile murders in the past few months, both of which will shape the way in which the public thinks about the progressive-district-attorney movement. Earlier this month, Bob Lee, a well-connected tech executive and the founder of Cash App, was stabbed to death in San Francisco during the early-morning hours. The news kicked up what has now become a predictable and exhausting reflex in which dozens of relatively prominent people with large social-media followings declare that the city has turned into a lawless pit of homelessness, drug addiction, and violent crime. Before a single relevant detail was released about the suspect in Lee’s murder, this chorus had already blamed it on the chaos brought on by Boudin’s administration. The sentiment was perhaps best summed up by Matt Ocko, a local venture capitalist, who tweeted, “Chesa Boudin, & the criminal-loving city council that enabled him & a lawless SF for years, have Bob’s literal blood on their hands. Take action.” David Sacks, another venture capitalist and one of the hosts of the “All-In” podcast, predicted “dollars to dimes” that Lee’s case would be similar to the tragedy of Brianna Kupfer, a U.C.L.A. student who was fatally stabbed by a homeless person. Elon Musk also chimed in with “Violent crime in SF is horrific and even if attackers are caught, they are often released immediately. Is the city taking stronger action to incarcerate repeat violent offenders @BrookeJenkinsSF?”

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Musk’s tweet was addressed to Brooke Jenkins, the tough-on-crime career prosecutor who replaced Boudin. Upon taking office, Jenkins promised to be everything her predecessor was not; she says she will impose harsh sentences on fentanyl dealers, crack down on robberies, and seek harsh prison sentences against violent criminals. Her job, in many ways, is to appease critics like Ocko and Musk and clean up a violent-crime epidemic that simply does not exist. San Francisco, despite what Ocko and Musk say, has a relatively low murder rate compared to other major cities.

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On Thursday, news came that the San Francisco Police Department had made an arrest in Lee’s murder. The suspect is not a deranged lunatic or career criminal left free to roam the hills of the city by a district attorney who left office nine months ago but, rather, a fellow tech entrepreneur with whom Lee was familiar. Given these realities and the fact that they will not quiet the doomsayers who see San Francisco as a post-apocalyptic zombie set filled with violent psychotic homeless people, Jenkins’s popularity among the Ockos, Sackses, and Musks will likely hinge on how she handles the public-relations part of the job, namely how loudly she renounces Boudin and his movement and how well she can tell the story that the streets are safer.

In February, on the other side of the Bay, Jen Angel, a baker, book publicist, and political activist, was dragged to her death by a getaway car driven by two men who had just robbed her in Oakland. After Angel’s death, her friends, family, and partner put out statements that she believed in restorative justice, and would not have wanted her assailants to spend any time in prison.

Angel’s case will be taken up by Pamela Price, the progressive district attorney of Alameda County, who has spent the first four months of her first term mired in the types of scandals that ultimately sank Boudin. First came the grumblings that Price, a former civil-rights attorney, was in over her head. Then came a series of high-level departures from Price’s office, including Jill Nerone, a veteran prosecutor who, in her resignation letter, wrote that she felt that she could no longer protect the rights of victims of violent crime. In February, Price’s office worked out a plea deal with a man who had been convicted of three homicides. In exchange for a significantly reduced sentence, the man was going to publicly apologize. The plea was rejected by an Alameda County judge. In response, Price has moved to bar the judgefrom presiding over any criminal cases in Alameda County.

These stories have been accompanied by the case of Jasper Wu, a toddler who was killed during a highway shootout in 2021. Price’s office is currently reviewing the charges filed by her predecessor against the three men suspected of Wu’s killing, which, in turn, has activated the same local Chinese American groups who protested Boudin for what they saw to be his callous handling of a series of attacks on Asian Americans in the city. They believe that Price, like Boudin, is more committed to protecting criminals than protecting Asian residents.

In response to the criticism from Wu’s advocates, Price put out a lengthy video statement on social media in which she talks about the racist comments and messages her office has received in reaction to its perceived inaction in the Wu case, which, while horrible in their own right, don’t have much of anything to do with what she, an elected official, plans to do about the murder. This past Sunday, a five-year-old girl was shot and killed in another senseless freeway shooting in the East Bay, a day before a planned protest at the Alameda County Courthouse, where a crowd gathered to demand justice for Jasper Wu and call on Price to remember that “victims come first.”

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Price also singled out a journalist—the local TV news reporter Dion Lim—who had released unflattering e-mails from Price’s office and has interviewed Jasper Wu’s family, who are anxious that they will not see justice. Boudin also had his run-ins with Lim, who is mostly known for posting videos of violent attacks on Asian American Bay Area residents to her social-media accounts. One can feel however one wants about the salaciousness of Lim’s reporting, but it is unusual for two separate district attorneys to single out a reporter, question her integrity, and accuse her of trying to sabotage their mandates. One television reporter should not be able to derail a progressive prosecutor’s entire office. The targeting of Lim by these two, separate administrations reflects the unique spoiler role that local media can play in the tenure of a progressive district attorney. Crime reporting is the lifeblood of local news, and finding someone to blame is the job of the opinion makers. Every murder, assault, or rash of robberies becomes a referendum on the progressive prosecutor. The news will hit, a suspect will be named, and if the perp has any rap sheet at all—and it’s likely that they will—everyone will start asking why this thug was out on the streets in the first place. That Price and Boudin both seem more concerned with calling out a reporter for doing her job than providing actual answers to the public’s inevitable questions exposes what could kindly be called a confused set of priorities in their respective administrations. More important, it suggests that there may be a gap between what the public hears from progressive prosecutors about reducing sentences for, say, low-level drug offenders—a broadly popular policy, especially in blue cities—and their willingness to extend the same leniency toward violent criminals.

The focus on Lim is especially strange because while the local media still plays a role in selecting which crimes capture the public’s attention, their role in shaping the narrative around law and order has been ceded, in large part, to social-media clout. For both Angel’s and Lee’s murders, the outcry in the Bay Area wasn’t measured by the number of headlines but, rather, by the volume of high-follower tweets. Since both Angel and Lee were seemingly beloved members of highly visible communities—Angel was well known within East Bay organizing circles; Lee had worked in the C-suite of one of the region’s large tech companies—their murders were widely discussed on social media; this, in turn, prompted local news to cover them even more.

It’s important to distinguish the type of social media that actually drives these backlashes. The fear of crime often gets presented as a response to numbers—murder rates, numbers of robberies, carjackings, and assaults—but it’s primarily an anecdotal phenomenon that very often runs counter to what all the metrics would suggest. Today, the bulk of the fearmongering appears to exist online, where an informal rubric of virality determines how much the country, at large, hears about one crime or another. On global social networks such as Twitter, TikTok, and Facebook, amplification usually depends on whether there’s footage of the crime and whether the circumstances, especially around the race of the attacker and the victim, match up with some larger political narrative.

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But all that sharing, especially on the national level, doesn’t seem to contribute all that much to fear of crime, which is usually a local phenomenon. Nextdoor and Citizen, apps that provide user-generated updates on crimes in your neighborhood, accelerate people’s fear of crime in ways that viral national stories cannot. These localized networks, whether on platforms like WeChat or in large WhatsApp groups, connect people who have similar fears. You might be interested in the break-in or assault in another city for any number of reasons, political or personal, but you really get scared only when you see the little icon denoting a crime pinned on the map just a few blocks from where you live.

All this seems to set up a grim reality for progressive prosecutors: violent crimes will happen, they will be sensationalized by the local media, which will blame the progressive district attorney; this, in turn, will activate local online networks, which, most likely, will also blame the progressive district attorney. In San Francisco, that feedback cycle eventually led to Boudin’s recall. Price may very well be heading to a similar fate. But this is where the other truth must be considered: these are all officials who won elections. Tough-on-crime candidates like Paul Vallas in Chicago and Rick Caruso in Los Angelesboth lost to progressive opponents. In many elections that pit a progressive candidate against a tough-on-crime moderate, the progressive has often relied on a coalition of Black and younger, white, college-educated voters. In Boudin’s recall election, for example, one of his strongest areas of support was northern Bernal Heights, one of the whitest and most college-educated neighborhoods in the city.

The reality is that large, coastal American cities are still filled with a lot of bona-fide liberals who want reform in the criminal-justice system and who do not buy into every crime narrative that’s put out by their local media. In the Bay Area, liberals comprise a much stronger majority of the population than tech billionaires and venture capitalists who vaguely gesture at solutions but can’t be bothered to read a national violent-crime report. Boudin’s recall certainly reflected a growing frustration with his office, but it was primarily driven by the super-wealthy and Asian Americans, who make up about a third of the city’s population. On the whole, then, the disagreement in Oakland, San Francisco, and many other major American cities isn’t between Democrats and Republicans but, rather, between a coalition of immigrants and wealthy white voters versus Black and educated, progressive white voters.

The future of how crime—especially violent crime—is handled in big American cities will be determined along the fault line between those progressive voters and the angry residents who feel as if all the criminals are being dumped on their block once they get released by a lenient district attorney. If progressives want to avoid endless recalls, they will have to pay far more attention to how high-profile cases like those of Jasper Wu, Bob Lee, and Jen Angel activate communities and place pressure on everyone else in the political apparatus. They, like Jenkins, will have to engage in a little bit of magical storytelling. But even that strategy poses a problem: If you go hard-line in cases only when there’s a large, vocal outcry; if, in essence, you make choices on whom to prosecute to the full extent of the law, have you really reformed the inequalities within the criminal-justice system? ♦︎

 

 

[Bevo 13,577]

41 minutes ago, Foosters said:

I'm not sure what argument you're making. I posted the article as a follow up to 2 articles posted last week - one from NY Times and one from LA Times - that quoted 5 random tech execs to show that the city is embroiled in violence. It was more of a criticism of the legacy media as opposed to a political attack.

I was laughing at the article. It began with, "The stabbing death of Lee was almost instantaneously taken as confirmation of an emerging narrative about the city — dirty, dangerous, unlivable. Lee’s friends and business acquaintances knew whom to blame: San Francisco’s liberal politicians".

The problem with the article's premise (if the beginning of the article was the premise) is that Lee's family and business acquaintances are liberal while the article hinted otherwise. 98% of all Tech money went to liberal politicians in the last election and most Tech CEOs are liberal. So, it is pretty funny that the writer is upset that San Francisco's liberal politicians are being blamed and then placed the blame back on Lee's friends and business acquaintances, pretty much attacking the guy who was killed. With friends like that writer who needs enemies?

Edited April 19, 2023 by Bevo

[BabaYaga 15,298]

1 hour ago, bolverk said:

Middle America just fucking loves to shit on San Francisco

To be fair, they do a good job of self tracking it themselves

[Mullet Free 40]

On 4/19/2023 at 2:08 PM, We’reTexas said:

My problem with this take is he conflates the narrative of violent crime often expressed by national media, generally hyperbolic, and the debate within San Francisco, which is focused on property crime and perceptions of public safety; by debunking the former he effectively denies the validity of the latter (he wrote a very similar column after the Boudin recall IIRC).

Sounds right. The Governor agrees with this sentiment. Calling in more resources. 
 

 

"Two truths can coexist at the same time: San Francisco’s violent crime rate is below comparably sized cities like Jacksonville and Fort Worth—and there is also more we must do to address public safety concerns, especially the fentanyl crisis," Newsom said.

[DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt 12,301]

On 4/17/2023 at 9:57 PM, ChickenSandwich said:

If Max Max was looking for oil, and he could search 52,000 square miles of land for 500 barrels of oil or he could search 300 sq miles of land for 480 barrels of oil, where should he search?

I’m crying.

[YGIFS 19,450]

Hawaii, dad?

shut up rusty. 

[RDCanecutter 26,443]

On 4/16/2023 at 8:07 PM, ChickenSandwich said:

Stats show you are nearly twice as likely to be murdered in NYC than anywhere in Alabama. Avoiding RDCanecutter increases this percentage. 

Just lettin y'all know.

[HenryJames 66,052]

On 4/7/2023 at 9:07 AM, 52-80 said:

The hits keep rollin in

 

 

[AnotherUTFan 9,740]

So this mother fucker was going around attacking defenseless, unsuspecting victims with bear spray and finally walked up on the wrong guy, then has his mom crying about it on Nextdoor? The rage is pretty strong in me right now.

https://sfstandard.com/criminal-justice/beating-of-ex-fire-commissioner-defense-attorney-accuses-don-carmignani-of-bear-spray-attacks-on-homeless-people/

In other news, it appears Bob Lee was quite the party guy - not that there's anything wrong with that.

https://sfstandard.com/criminal-justice/bob-lee-killing-what-role-did-drugs-play-in-sf-slaying-of-tech-exec/

[Nicole44 22,060]

[hornbri 1,398]

The NYTimes with a story on Downtown SF. It is clear there are issues in that area. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/30/us/san-francisco-whole-foods-crime-economy.html?unlocked_article_code=hmmUYlPSXZZixY7tRXIhPFR01xgS8AaT1FVZvQHdL7tMzP7ZFfJvqNC5DnadVD8u4Q5JIcZsRPPoLhjpnih0F9s6nuG7K5m0KlhAPgk-CV8ltJMZets6q1fSFrfbwFHoBuLN51K9Mg0VAMfhbHhai4yhGFxyf13Fg-0HojSgjLWKnwTNk8_OORfC5HFaS4JE_orA4uqOiBfzdlWtL18_mvggvddyDdW3lubRAXKlT7tA-vbtwB_uo6qd9mVvJLJxrrHovy9Ij1LuRdiVHEE6Lpad6c0_Pf04QKsWXMrNxCJQxT7aJVF9LJmL59UlMhoy-qYQnS3iH_w_Iy3Ngiyg615I8qQi9YAfUoPy50s&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

[blacklab 11,929]

Anyone else read that as a "Man bear" was spraying people?

 

 

[UnivTex34 1,763]

4 minutes ago, blacklab said:

Anyone else read that as a "Man bear" was spraying people?

 

 

[Shaggy3.0 1,695]

On 4/26/2023 at 7:53 PM, AnotherUTFan said:

In other news, it appears Bob Lee was quite the party guy - not that there's anything wrong with that.

https://sfstandard.com/criminal-justice/bob-lee-killing-what-role-did-drugs-play-in-sf-slaying-of-tech-exec/

 

A rich married man travelling alone---far away from the fam.  He was probably tapping ass.

[Samson's Wig 3,192]

I have laughed mightly while reading through this thread after a couple of weeks away.  After I was blasted by a handful of meatheads for noting that statistics are not facts (because they're not and you have to be fairly dense to think they are) tons of examples of the selective use of statistics to manipulate a narrative were presented in this very thread.  But stats are facts, bro!  

Anyone who thinks San Francisco is more dangerous than your typical blue-collar town is delusional or hasn't spent significant time in a large city in the last few decades.  I think this largely comes from folks who live in the suburbs and are simply frightened by the sight of homeless people. Or perhaps they're just people who can be presented with a statistic, any statistic, and immediately believe the narrative attached to it.  See the Tucker Carlson thread for more discussion of these types.

There's an easy joke there when a former fire commissioner is now in the cannabis industry, but I'm too unfunny to land on it.   If he's the one bear-spraying people, well, fuck him and he got what he was asking for.

Finally, and to repurpose an old lawyer joke, what do you call 500 dead tech "founders" at the bottom of the ocean?     A good start.

 

[AnotherUTFan 9,740]

There's an easy joke there when a former fire commissioner is now in the cannabis industry, but I'm too unfunny to land on it.   If he's the one bear-spraying people, well, fuck him and he got what he was asking for.
 

It's interesting to me that they characterized him as a Fire Commissioner instead of a weed entrepreneur in the 1st place. Reading closer, his only tie to SFFD was being appointed to a civilian FD advisory board, where he sat for about 2 months before resigning due to a domestic abuse charge.

[YGIFS 19,450]

29 minutes ago, Samson's Wig said:

I have laughed mightly while reading through this thread after a couple of weeks away.  After I was blasted by a handful of meatheads for noting that statistics are not facts (because they're not and you have to be fairly dense to think they are) tons of examples of the selective use of statistics to manipulate a narrative were presented in this very thread.  But stats are facts, bro!  

Anyone who thinks San Francisco is more dangerous than your typical blue-collar town is delusional or hasn't spent significant time in a large city in the last few decades.  I think this largely comes from folks who live in the suburbs and are simply frightened by the sight of homeless people. Or perhaps they're just people who can be presented with a statistic, any statistic, and immediately believe the narrative attached to it.  See the Tucker Carlson thread for more discussion of these types.

There's an easy joke there when a former fire commissioner is now in the cannabis industry, but I'm too unfunny to land on it.   If he's the one bear-spraying people, well, fuck him and he got what he was asking for.

Finally, and to repurpose an old lawyer joke, what do you call 500 dead tech "founders" at the bottom of the ocean?     A good start.

 

the "toughest" men I know live in constant fear and are armed to the teeth just to go shopping or to church.  And they're always the first people to tell me, "You can't live in fear man, you gotta live your life bro."  Says the guy who can't drive to a fucking Chili's without two semi-automatics in his F-250 that hasn't seen off-roading since he tried to parallel park it at a carnival.  

Edited May 1, 2023 by YGIFS

[Deej 76,791]

On 4/26/2023 at 7:12 PM, Nicole44 said:

 

[Brisketexan 105,140]

the "toughest" men I know live in constant fear and are armed to the teeth just to go shopping or to church.  And they're always the first people to tell me, "You can't live in fear man, you gotta live your life bro."  Says the guy who can't drive to a fucking Chili's without two semi-automatics in his F-250 that hasn't seen off-roading since he tried to parallel park it at a carnival.  

It’s an F-150. And I take it off-road whenever I drive over the curb backing out of my driveway, smart guy. And if you don’t arm yourself when carnies might be present, that’s on you, bro.