
San Francisco Torn as Some See “Street Behavior” Worsen - whack
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/25/us/san-francisco-torn-as-some-see-street-behavior-worsen.html?_r=0
======
whack
As someone who moved out of SF 2 years ago, this article reflects exactly the
frustrations I felt with the city. I'm all for progressive ideals. I support
universal healthcare. I support free higher-ed. I support basic income. And
I'm perfectly happy to pay drastically higher taxes in order to fund all of
the above.

But I also want to live in a city where I don't need to worry about my car
getting broken into. Where I don't have to worry about being mugged late at
night. Where the police department is adequately staffed to minimize crime,
and those who do commit crimes are punished for doing so.

And call me an elitist, but I'd be very happy if my kids could grow up in a
city where the streets are clean and don't smell of piss.

I don't see why any of those desires should be in conflict with my progressive
ideals, but apparently in SF, that makes me a heartless capitalist pig.
Whatever. Water under the bridge now. Best wishes to you SF. I'll just
continue living here in my new home where people are willing to face up to
real problems with practical solutions.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
New York strikes a more sustainable urban balance than San Francisco. We
embrace social programs, but not at the expense of quality of life or
development.

A lot of the balancing comes from development. It's rare for _e.g._ a city
block to come together to demand better policies. When they do, it's often a
NIMBYist backlash against productive policy. Developers, on the other hand,
care about the impact of policies on their aggregate holdings. Since they're
typically developing a pipeline, their NIMBYist instincts tend to be
relatively dulled.

Everything seems to point in the same direction. Cities which refuse to grow,
instead transferring the fruits of growth to a land-owning elite, fail.

~~~
ZanyProgrammer
I have a very pessimistic view of how shitty (literally) SF is run, but this
strikes me as being just as wrong in the opposite direction. The NYPD strikes
me as the law enforcement branch of a police state. Surely there are other big
cities that have a decent quality of life that aren't SF or NYC.

~~~
yummyfajitas
Can you name any big cities with an underclass of antisocial criminals,
without a crime problem, and also without aggressive law enforcement to keep
them in check?

~~~
Mandatum
Would Tokyo count here? It's a case of if-you-can't-beat-'em though, which
probably isn't the example you want.

~~~
yummyfajitas
I've never been to Tokyo and have no idea. How does Tokyo avoid disorder
caused by undesirables?

~~~
Mandatum
The Yakuza is heavily integrated into the government and it has become
tolerated by the people. A few decades ago the government cracked down on the
Yakuza as they had too much hold on how the government was run, so they
splintered and different chapters took different parts of crime (ie Yamaguchi-
gumi are heavily against drug trafficking and Dojin-kai are heavily involved
in it).

Japan is one of the most crime-free countries in the world, because serious
crime is monopolised by the criminals (and penalties for cutting their lunch
are pretty heavy, which is common amongst most Asian gangs) and "respect" or
"honour" is considered sacred. They don't romanticise or make "being an
asshole" look fun or positive (ala "Wolf of Wall Street" is a perfect
example).

------
mjolk
>“We are not going to criminalize people for being poor,” he said. “That
criminalization is only going to make it harder for them to get out of
poverty.”

I don't understand this attitude -- policing crime and taking actions to
reduce the number of victims isn't "against" those in poverty. If you're poor
and committing non-trivial crimes, it's your personal choices working against
you, not society.

Maybe I'm too "east coast," but I'm also not comfortable with the idea that
criminal acts should be excused if the perpetrator is under some income
threshold or got himself/herself hooked on drugs.

For those "voting down", please explain to me how my worldview is
disagreeable. I'm not against changing my mind based on solid arguments.

~~~
yoo1I
I see where you're coming from. But you have to keep in mind that there a
myriad of offences that you're not susceptible to commit if your living
standard is above a certain threshold.

Say, loitering, because maybe you have no home or a crowded one, so it's
better to spend more time of the day on the street. Or petty theft, for people
who're really poor. If you're a druggie and need money for a fix. Or say
you're in the country illegally.

And I am sure we could come up with more. The point is none of these behaviors
(well, except loitering, I don't get why that should be criminalized) are
desirable for society as a whole, but it's not correct to pretend that the
laws applies to all citizens equally, when there a forces that prod some
people towards classes of crimes. That goes the other way too, for example
considering tax evasion.

The question becomes then how to we manage these behaviors, and I'm not sure
that an increased pressure by the state to enforce existing laws on a
vulnerable population, actually solves anything.

Yeah you might have some moral ideas about whether "getting yourself hooked on
drugs" is a good idea, from a policy standpoint that's irrelevant, what
matters is to manage the fallout that this has on society right now and how to
deal with it in the future.

~~~
mjolk
Lowering your expectations for low-income households and treating people that
come from them as if they're too stupid and/or broken to not commit crimes is
wrong is offensive. There's a difference between acknowledging the value free
education, cheap housing, and money for food and outright turning a blind eye
to opportunists and criminals.

>If you're a druggie and need money for a fix.

How is that your or my problem? You get yourself addicted to drugs. If someone
mugs my girlfriend and trades her phone for some heroin, I don't understand
why I'm supposed to shrug it off, feel sympathy for the criminal, and let that
junkie make someone else live in fear so they can get high.

>there a forces that prod some people towards classes of crimes. That goes the
other way too, for example considering tax evasion.

Muggings, rapes, and violent crime have drastically different effects on
people than the taxman putting a lower number in a ledger. Trying to conflate
crimes that happen to a person with financial loopholes is apologetics for
violent criminals.

>Or say you're in the country illegally.

Then don't come to the country illegally if you're going to do destructive
things against the people that you want to help you.

~~~
yoo1I
I'm not turning a blind eye, I'm acknowledging that different classes of
people have different classes of problems and commit different classes of
crime.

I am not conflating these different types of crimes; what I am saying is that
"crime" is really just a tool to deal with behavior that is detrimental to a
societal good. And maybe that it's possible to deal with these problems in
more appropriate ways then just trying to enforce laws with higher pressure.

And while you're right, that tax evasion is different from mugging someone on
the street, don't pretend that white-collar crime is a victimless crime. And
again, increased pressure to enforce existing laws, might not be the best
answer there either.

And again: If I am a druggie and need a fix, then it's more likely that this
problem has a better solution that just throw me in jail. It makes a whole lot
more sense to treat a serious drug addiction as an illness. But that needs a
little bit more empathy than your approach of "You knew the risk when you went
out skiing, don't complain to me that you're on the ground with a broken leg
now" \- sure there is some truth to it, but that doesn't help anyone.

~~~
mjolk
I'm not pretending white-collar crime is victimless, but I'm also not at all
comfortable with the bias of "remove the consequences of crime for people
perceived to be disadvantaged."

The issue of treating drug addiction as a health issue instead of a crime is a
tangential topic, but enforcing the law when a drug addict commits a crime is
not (e.g. mugging, theft, assault).

~~~
mercer
> The issue of treating drug addiction as a health issue instead of a crime is
> a tangential topic, but enforcing the law when a drug addict commits a crime
> is not (e.g. mugging, theft, assault).

To me it's not tangential, but rather the core of the issue.

Let's take the druggie. I agree with you that 'removing consequences' of crime
committed to acquire more drugs is a terrible idea. Justice to the people
affected is important.

However, if this consequence is jail time, a criminal record, or any other
form of punishment that doesn't benefit both the addict and those affected by
him, we're only sweeping the problem under the rug, _and_ we're not
acknowledging the complexities of addiction and the dignity of the human
behind the 'druggie'. Furthermore, it's likely that said addict will become a
worse problem for society down the road. It's lose-lose.

There are plenty of solutions where the addict's crime have consequences other
than simply punishing them that are more effective, less dehumanizing, and
ultimately better for society as a whole.

On a more... ethical level, I feel that where we fundamentally go wrong in
these situations is that we forget that being poor, being an addict, and even
to a degree being a criminal is not just a simple matter of choice. I've
personally known many addicts, criminals and poor people, and I can say with
full conviction that the vast majority of them were _good_ people who made
mistakes that were not 100% their responsibility. Instead of bickering over
_how much_ responsible they are, accepting this reality and trying to approach
it with compassion for all sides should already improve many things. Hell, if
more people would just go a bit below 100% it'd be a good start.

I think I'm a pretty good person, but putting myself in the position of my
addict, poor, or criminal friends, with the same environment, parents,
friends, and choices available, all of them mostly out of their control, well,
I'd likely make those same choices.

And applying everything I've learned about willpower, group dynamics
(groupthink), peer pressure, and whatnot, makes me even more convinced that
punishment is not only a solution that doesn't work, but morally wrong and
detrimental to society as a whole.

~~~
mjolk
If I understand you, you're suggesting a course of corrective action that
doesn't simply look at a given event (e.g. robbing a woman at knifepoint) when
suggesting punishment for a crime. This is already the case in US courts,
wherein judges are allowed to know prior convictions and extenuating
circumstances. Counseling and treatment is already a part of the legal
process.

More contentiously, there's always a sob story that can be spun for any given
criminal, but ultimately, I believe it dangerous to hand-wave away the role of
personal agency. Being born poor is obviously not a personal choice, but
actions taken along the way (having a child when young), taking the risk with
illegal and highly addictive drugs, committing violent crime, are conscious
acts that unsurprisingly make it harder to get out of poverty. The
consequences of those actions is likely particularly known in lower income
areas.

You're thinking about this from the position of a logical person who cares
about the welfare of others. Decriminalizing assault and theft is asking
victims to take part in a system in which they pay money to support people who
are causing harm.

~~~
bkirkbri
> Being born poor is obviously not a personal choice, but actions taken along
> the way (having a child when young), taking the risk with illegal and highly
> addictive drugs, committing violent crime, are conscious acts that
> unsurprisingly make it harder to get out of poverty. The consequences of
> those actions is likely particularly known in lower income areas.

I was raised with the same belief, _however_ I have learned through broader
experience that people from varying backgrounds have vastly different ways of
perceiving and evaluating the information in front of them. I do not mean this
to indicate, for example, that people in poverty are inferior and incapable of
logically assessing the consequences of a teen pregnancy.

Rather, I would suggest that you and I were likely privy to a myriad of small,
incremental and beneficial teachings and experiences that led to our view of
teen pregnancy. As a result I believe it unwise to judge others, who did not
have the privilege of those same teachings, based on the assumption that they
knew the "unsurprising" "consequences" of their actions.

~~~
mjolk
I'm not judging -- I'm stating facts. Also, I was hoping to hint at that
policing crime isn't the same as criminalizing being poor. It's possible to be
flat out broke and not commit crimes.

Having grown up in a town where the high school graduation rate was below 80%,
I can assure you that it's not unfair to expect people from low-income
families to know the consequences of their actions.

This is pretty far from my statement of not excusing or ignoring crimes
committed by those in poverty, especially violent crimes.

------
curiousphil
"About half the cases here are thefts from vehicles, smash-and-grabs that
scatter glittering broken glass onto the sidewalks."

This is way too close to home... Was in SF for GDC 2016 about a month ago when
my crews vehicle window was smashed (in the Moscone Center Parking Lot) and 5
backpacks full of MacBook Pros, iPads, cash and an expensive digital SLR with
even more expensive lenses were swiped in the blink of an eye. We had dropped
our stuff there and grabbed a bite to eat when we came back to the horrific
site of our rental vehicles window shattered all over the ground.

Just the night before we were noting how incredibly quiet SF was at night
after 9:30pm. Apparently a quiet city is NOT a crime free one.

The security guard and guys in the booth at the parking garage were less than
helpful despite there being a variety of security camera screens/cameras. When
we called the cops they said we could wait there for an officer but it might
be hours so we best just go to the nearest station and file a report. A month
out and we've heard nothing on the case despite there being about $20k of
belongings grabbed. We didn't really expect to hear much based on their
response.

Yes I realize it was incredibly stupid to leave that amount of valuables in a
vehicle in the city. Lesson learned there. In our city (Boise) you can
practically leave your keys in the ignition without any concerns. Thankfully
we paid for the no hassle insurance on the vehicle and our company insurance
covered most of our stolen goods. It was still a big loss though and a major
hassle. I'll never be so naive again. Hopefully someone reading this can learn
from our mistake as well.

~~~
JamilD
In San Francisco, if you leave anything worth more than a couple hundred
dollars in your car, it's as good as gone.

It took me a while to get used to the level of crime in SF too… it's so
different from even North San Jose or Mountain View.

~~~
rajacombinator
Sucks for GP but this is true in any major city. Leaving valuable gear in
sight is inviting theft.

~~~
yummyfajitas
This isn't true in NYC, Mumbai, Singapore or London.

~~~
ninguem2
Interesting that it isn't true in Mumbai. I would have expected far worse,
given the level of poverty. What's the reason?

~~~
yummyfajitas
It's called "law enforcement". If you try to pull off a bunch of smash&grabs
in Bandra or Colaba the cops will beat you with lathis. Law enforcement is far
from uniform - many neighborhoods (e.g. Baiganwadi) don't have much of it. But
no one parks their car in Baiganwadi.

What seems to make SF pretty unique is that even in the wealthy areas it lacks
effective law enforcement.

Also, poverty in Mumbai isn't quite the same as poverty in the rest of India.
Significant portions of Mumbai approach US-"poor" levels of income (about
$15-20k/year, PPP adjusted) which is considered quite wealthy over here.

~~~
ooooo00000
> It's called "law enforcement". If you try to pull off a bunch of smash&grabs
> in Bandra or Colaba the cops will beat you with lathis.

Where I live thieves are often beaten to death. And the rate of theft is still
high. I could point you to some studies about punishment not being an
effective crime deterrent, but not sure it would change your mind. It's a
complicated problem and law enforcement is a band-aid at best.

~~~
yummyfajitas
Do you think crime would not increase if punishment were reduced?

Fundamentally I think law enforcement is just one piece of the puzzle.
Intrinsic factors (culture, biology, economics, psychology) also play a major
role - all else held equal, the US is likely to be more violent than India
(important exception being sexual violence). But law enforcement does matter -
how else to explain how clean little India is in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur?

I'll certainly look at your studies.

------
saosebastiao
Despite being in the tech industry, the only people I know that live in San
Francisco fall firmly in the "Have-nots" category, and it has been
illuminating watching their resentment turn to anger to full on (as in
_actually_ violent) class warfare. 15 years ago, those that moved there seemed
genuinely happy and peaceful. Now they are on standby to riot.

Being able to see both sides is an interesting perspective and unfortunately
it doesn't give me much hope. The rhetoric on one side is dismissive and
bordering on authoritarian, the rhetoric on the other side is growing hateful
and violent. Whereas living in Stockton (where I am from, as well as those I
know living there) could be compared to living in Cleveland or Detroit, the
only parallel I see in San Francisco is Paris circa the 1780s. Which is kinda
scary.

~~~
adrienne
Gee, I can't imagine why people would be hateful and violent when they're
being driven further and further into poverty - and out of their homes and
neighborhoods - by rent-seekers and rich dudebros. I can't imagine why they'd
be hateful and violent when they're starving and homeless the next street over
from 20something billionaires who do basically nothing useful for humanity.

Paris circa the 1780s is exactly right. I hope the homeless of SF build a
guillotine very soon.

------
ianbicking
> “We are not going to criminalize people for being poor,” he said. “That
> criminalization is only going to make it harder for them to get out of
> poverty.”

Underlying this sentiment is the idea that the poor are a monolith. That
someone stealing from cars or someone with mental problems who can't maintain
a job or relationships is a good representation of "the poor".

The guy in the article who had his BMW broken into can afford to be blasé
about the incident - he's insured, whatever was stolen he can replace without
blinking an eye. The poor person who is robbed can't just replace whatever was
stolen. "Poor people" aren't just perpetrators, they are also
disproportionately victims (unless SF is different, which it probably is
because it's so weird) - and I think they yearn for safety and stability MORE
than wealthy people, they just can't do much about it. We mistake the
complacency - which is the natural and probably healthy reaction when you
don't feel you can affect social change - for a comfort with all aspects of
the urban environment.

------
KKKKkkkk1
What irks me is the hypocrisy of the city supervisor who is speaking out
against the capitalist ethos of the new arrivals who disrespect San
Francisco's liberal traditions. Seriously dude, a city where you pay > $1K to
live in a kennel is as dog-eat-dog as a city can get.

~~~
wpietri
I see you edited it, but you originally wrote:

> Why don't you think about the people who are trying to put a shelter above
> their heads and not just about the homeless?

Which I think is a more honest representation of your view.

San Francisco has become a dog-eat-dog city _because_ of the new arrivals,
_because_ of the massive wealth streaming in to the city.

It has become a very different place than it was in the eras that it welcomed
the beatniks, the hippies, the gay community. Those people came to put a roof
above their heads. They came to find a home. The newest arrivals have mostly
come to line their pockets.

------
minimaxir
It's odd that the article avoids the question of where crime occurs in the
city, as that might provide some answers. A few months ago I made many data
visualizations of where criminal arrests occur in San Francisco:
[http://minimaxir.com/2015/12/sf-arrest-
maps/](http://minimaxir.com/2015/12/sf-arrest-maps/)

The tl;dr is that, as expected, SF crime is centralized in the Tenderloin,
with 16th St Mission being a close second. However, as the years progressed,
crime has become relatively less centralized around those areas. (there wasn't
much activity on Lombard Street, though.)

~~~
ZanyProgrammer
16th St Mission is definitely one of the scariest places to wait for transit
(in my case, for the 22), even during the normal work day.

~~~
bluejekyll
Why not walk up to Valencia? Though, I guess there you might get puked on...

I have to say though, the Mission has never felt as dangerous as the 'Loin did
15 years ago, when I used to wait for the 21 at Jones.

Eventually I moved to just take the 5 which was safer. I have to say, either
I'm lucky or something, but I've not had any issues with crime in S.F. in the
16 years that I've lived here. Philadelphia for example has always felt much
more dangerous at night.

------
JamilD
> “We are not going to criminalize people for being poor,” he said. “That
> criminalization is only going to make it harder for them to get out of
> poverty.”

No, but we should criminalize people if they commit crimes. Laws exist for a
reason, and they _must_ be enforced to be effective.

~~~
wpietri
I don't think what you say is wrong. But I don't think it's the ironclad reply
you hope.

As Anatole France said, "In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and
poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of
bread."

I just had my bike stolen out of my back yard here in the Mission two days
ago. I'm still mad. But odds are that it was some homeless addict, and
enforcing the law and putting him in jail for a few weeks will be no more
effective in solving the problem of petty theft than not enforcing the law.

I would certainly like to see the cops arrest the people up the stolen goods
chain, the people who actually have something to lose. Crime shouldn't pay.
But the way to stop people stealing to survive is to help them find some more
productive way to survive.

~~~
GuiA
Sorry to kill your Robin Hood romanticism, but odds are that it was people who
are routine bike thiefs and flip them in LA, making very handsome money,
rather than some poor fellow whose been shortchanged by life and left on the
sidelines. Those people are mostly harmless and passed out on the street,
rambling incoherently at worst, and at best asking for money.

Those are the kind of people stealing bikes, and they deserve judicial action:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/4fcy9y/sparks...](https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/4fcy9y/sparks_fly_as_bike_thief_grinds_through_lock/)

~~~
wpietri
Yes, please condescendingly tell me more about the neighborhood I've lived in
for 15 years. Because I'm sure you know way more about it than I do.

Christ, I have personally chased down a bike thief to help a friend get her
bike back. I saw the guy up close. I saw the scabby meth face. I felt the
addict skinniness under my hand when I grabbed him.

Yes, I know that professional bike thief rings also operate in my city. But
they aren't the ones stealing 8-year-old bikes out of back yards, bikes that
were worth $500 new. They are stealing things with resale value.

------
tommoor
At the end of the article:

“Police are barred by city ordinance from installing surveillance cameras in
San Francisco”

This just seems bonkers to me - every few days hoodline is reporting a
stabbing / shooting in the TL and they never seem to have any leads, I guess
this is why. There should be security cameras on every cross street in the TL.

~~~
x3n0ph3n3
> There should be security cameras on every cross street in the TL.

How would you feel if the city wanted to install video cameras all over _your_
neighborhood, keeping track of everyone's comings and goings?

~~~
HillaryBriss
I think people who live in a crime ridden neighborhood would, in many cases,
be supportive if the cameras reduced crime.

I believe the practical reality is that, in most places where video security
cameras are ubiquitous (e.g. London), the vast majority of the recorded
footage is never viewed by anyone and is not archived. There's too much of it
and it's too boring.

~~~
DanBC
Although London also has extensive car number-plate reading technology so they
don't need to store the video, they can just store the rats nest of hits of
vehicles travelling around.

~~~
HillaryBriss
Thanks for pointing that out. This does take matters to a different level
because someone will surely hack such a nifty DB of license plates, times and
locations (if they haven't already).

But even so, there's a legitimate policy debate to be had about the value of
such a DB vis a vis its riskiness to individual privacy. Unfortunately, that's
the difficult world we live in. Medical records have been hacked. Voter
records have been hacked. And yet, somehow, societies have continued to
compile and update them.

------
phantarch
I just spent the last week in SF (am from a flyover state), and had a
difficult time enjoying walking the city without feeling stressed about not
knowing if the next block would feel safe or not. It definitely solidified my
decision to not move out there.

~~~
KKKKkkkk1
Where is that place where you're supposed to meet gentle people with flowers
in their hair? Not in San Francisco for sure.

------
applecore
San Francisco is a failed city. The failure of its prosperous element to do
anything about it is an indictment of its entire culture.

~~~
JamilD
I agree San Francisco has its problems, but calling it a failed city is
grossly overstating the problem. San Francisco continues to have a high degree
of social mobility relative to the rest of the United States [0].

[0] [http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/01/the-
geog...](http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/01/the-geography-of-
the-american-dream/283308/)

~~~
ZanyProgrammer
You mean if you have a Stanford or CMU CS degree and wine and dine with VCs?
Sure, its a great place for upward mobility. Now what about everyone who was
actually born in SF and who isn't in tech?

~~~
JamilD
One of the metrics, as mentioned in the article, is the probability of a child
being in the upper quintile of income, given that their parents were in the
bottom quintile (hardly wining and dining with VCs).

In SF, that probability is 0.122, or 12.2%… extremely high relative to the
rest of the country. Atlanta is 0.045, and even New York City is only 0.105.

------
refurb
I wonder how much of this has to do with Prop 47 which resulted in only a
citation and no arrest for: • Commercial burglary (theft under $950) • Forgery
and bad checks (under $950 value) • Theft of most firearms • Theft of a
vehicle (under $950 value) • Possession of stolen property (under $950 value)
• Possession of heroin, cocaine, illegal prescriptions, concentrated cannabis,
and methamphetamine

It's California-wide, but it would be interesting if an increase in crime
happened after it was passed.

------
marcoperaza
Why was this nuked from the front page? It's way lower in the rankings than it
should be for its age and point count.

Am I really witnessing such petty censorship?

[http://imgur.com/irJgUPD](http://imgur.com/irJgUPD)

------
ZanyProgrammer
Unless you're really rich and can literally isolate yourself from all this, SF
really isn't worth it. Of course, if you're really rich, you can live down in
Palo Alto, around the same neighborhood Steve Jobs lived in, or someplace like
Los Altos Hills, Atherton, etc and avoid all the (literal) shit in SF.

~~~
cookiecaper
SF is past the tipping point IMO. The absurdity of paying $3000+/mo for a 200
sq ft "micro-apartment" finally sunk in I guess. Some other place is going to
be home to the next batch of unicorns (well, maybe the third-next batch) and
SF will be done for. The city will panic and frantically grant the building
permits and provide semi-workable solutions to the rampant crime and traffic
problems to try to get some of the glory back, but it will be too little too
late.

~~~
ZanyProgrammer
I think living in Santa Clara County and commuting (preferably on Caltrain) is
infinitely better than actually living in SF. There's just as high as
concentration of geeks, and its so much safer (three cheers for the suburbs).

------
cromwellian
I was robbed at gunpoint on my birthday a few years ago in front of the SF
Chronicle for my cellphone!

The thief was finally caught, he wore a leather holster and was called the
cowboy bandit by the police and robbed 40 other people. At trial, one
particular gentleman had been beaten and facially disfigured after handing
over his phone because the thief noticed he was gay.

My old boss had his car smashed and valuables removed.

And a popular travel blogger who reviews national parks in her RV which she
lives in and is herself rather poor, stopped in SF overnight and had all of
her possessions stolen from her trailer.

------
riebschlager
Wow. Why did this fall off the front page so fast?

------
yarou
When I lived in NYC, I thought the NYPD were bad. Then I moved to SF and got
to experience the wonderful treatment of the SFPD.

Can't wait until my lease is up (another 5 months to go) so I can gtfo.

~~~
cookiecaper
Was there ever an update around Ian Murdock? I think his beef with Oakland PD,
not SF PD, but I would definitely be interested to know if there was a
conclusion to that story.

------
pervycreeper
>I don't see why any of those desires should be in conflict with my
progressive ideals

This is precisely the origin of the problem.

~~~
dang
Please don't post generically ideological comments to HN. They're a
particularly harmful form of unsubstantive comment because they provoke
generically ideological flamewars, which are the worst sort of thread.

We detached this subthread from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11562004](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11562004)
and marked it off-topic.

~~~
pervycreeper
I fully agree, in fact, the comment's intention was to counteract generic
ideological thinking. I do see how it could be interpreted as ideological
crusading, though, and it probably was excessively inflammatory in any case. I
will avoid doing that in the future.

------
marcoperaza
The liberal utopia. Where no one has the moral confidence to do what must be
done. Where people are so worried about being nice that they forget to be
good.

