Comment by stouset

20 days ago

This was the sensationalist media narrative, yes. Chesa got kicked out. Brooke Jenkins took over to much fanfare. Aaaand nothing material really changed, either with enforcement or with prosecution. The media stopped talking about it though.

SFPD hadn’t been doing their jobs for far, far longer than Chesa’s tenure. I moved here in 2013 and their non-enforcement practices were already legendary. Blaming Chesa for being in office for like 10 months in 2019-2020 is a hell of a cop out (pun intended).

Even if it were true, it wouldn’t in any way excuse the police for choosing not to do the job they’re paid to do.

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stouset

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JumpCrisscross  20 days ago

I can’t speak credibly to San Francisco. But in New York there was a visible rise and drop in what I’ll call nuisance crime. Petty theft forcing the toothbrushes into cages, homeless people yelling in the middle of the night, subway jumpers, graffiti, et cetera.

  • dttze  20 days ago

    The nypd is better funded than many state’s armed forces. Any funding changes would have been minimal and not caused that increase in crime.

    The obvious cause of the increase was the pandemic job losses and general societal decay. Oh and the cops quiet quitting because they were upset people hate them.

  • stouset  20 days ago

    And do you think this was a result of a ~3% reduction in police officers, or could it have been something else?

    • JumpCrisscross  20 days ago

      > do you think this was a result of a ~3% reduction in police officers, or could it have been something else?

      It was a combination of the weird post-Covid crime boom. And the various police reform efforts cities experimented with in the wake of George Floyd.

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  • FireBeyond  20 days ago

    > nuisance crime ... homeless people yelling in the middle of the night

    Is it a crime to be mentally ill in public in your world?

    • JumpCrisscross  20 days ago

      > Is it a crime to be mentally ill in public in your world?

      Yes, yelling in a residential neighbourhood in the middle of the night is a disturbance of peace. The fact that it’s caused by unchecked mental health is somewhat separate. (In many cases, I don’t think it was a mental health issue. I think Rob on the corner got drunk.)

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