I’m in San Francisco, reporting on the recall effort of District Attorney Chesa Boudin. A former SF deputy public defender, Boudin rode to something of a surprise victory in November 2019, when the appetite for criminal justice reform, at least in blue cities, appeared to be sharp.
Fantastic reporting. Thank you Nancy! I wish I was in town to take you out to dinner to thank you. It will be such a relief to San Franciscans on Tuesday when we can say goodbye to this reign of terror!
Great reporting Nancy! I live in the bay area and have been quie reluctant to visit SF after a dangerous experience I had with my teenage girls. You ask the questions I have and talk to the people I want to hear from people living the situation.
Lots of great observations but please do not propagate the "crime is low" narrative. Yes, looking at numbers crime overall may remain level from 2021 to 2022 but overall numbers are misleading. Certain categories are off the charts. You named one: theft. I would like your readers to know what "theft" looks like: car windows routinely smashed sometimes with nothing taken from the cars; homes burglarized while you are inside sleeping and computers, bikes and other items of value are hauled off; parked electric/mechanical bikes and cars stolen in broad daylight as locks are skillfully broken. Essentially the expectation is that anything valuable left in plain sight -- whether locked or not -- will likely one day be stolen, and your garage and home will likely be broken into especially if you live in a neighborhood that thieves consider lucrative. That is the lived in experience. So unless we are no longer a society that values one's ability to feel safe in one's home and with one's hard earned belongings, then theft should not be written off as insignificant to a person's feeling of safety even in an urban environment. Resident and writer Nellie Bowles put it best in today's Atlantic article: "You can spend days debating San Francisco crime statistics and their meaning, and many people do. It has relatively low rates of violent crime, and when compared with similarly sized cities, one of the lowest rates of homicide. But what the city has become notorious for are crimes like shoplifting and car break-ins, and there the data show that the reputation is earned. Burglaries are up more than 40 percent since 2019. Car break-ins have declined lately, but San Francisco still suffers more car break-ins—and far more property theft overall—per capita than cities like Atlanta and Los Angeles." https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/06/how-san-francisco-became-failed-city/661199/
The core Progressive error is confusing racism/oppression with the physical necessities of controlling crime, which will never go away. There has never been a logical excuse to give violent crooks a break, for skin color or any other reason.
Many also think the George Floyd thing was vastly over-hyped and he was killed accidentally by a cop sick of struggling with arrest-resisters, which isn't the same as murder. BLM ignores who's killing the most blacks (other blacks) and who's saving the most blacks (cops who remove thugs from mean streets).
Time's Arrow: The Chesa Boudin Recall
Thank you Nancy - I love your on the ground pieces, and that you get insights from people who wouldn't be interviewed by the main outlets.
Fantastic reporting. Thank you Nancy! I wish I was in town to take you out to dinner to thank you. It will be such a relief to San Franciscans on Tuesday when we can say goodbye to this reign of terror!
Nancy, you are the best! Your reporting is always spot on. Thank you for what you do.
Thanks for this report! Looking forward to more.
Great reporting Nancy! I live in the bay area and have been quie reluctant to visit SF after a dangerous experience I had with my teenage girls. You ask the questions I have and talk to the people I want to hear from people living the situation.
It feels like a change in the ether: The criminal is now the victim. And the victim is the criminal.
This is reporting I’m not privy to on the east coast mostly because my local outlet (WAPO) isn’t covering it. Thanks.
Lots of great observations but please do not propagate the "crime is low" narrative. Yes, looking at numbers crime overall may remain level from 2021 to 2022 but overall numbers are misleading. Certain categories are off the charts. You named one: theft. I would like your readers to know what "theft" looks like: car windows routinely smashed sometimes with nothing taken from the cars; homes burglarized while you are inside sleeping and computers, bikes and other items of value are hauled off; parked electric/mechanical bikes and cars stolen in broad daylight as locks are skillfully broken. Essentially the expectation is that anything valuable left in plain sight -- whether locked or not -- will likely one day be stolen, and your garage and home will likely be broken into especially if you live in a neighborhood that thieves consider lucrative. That is the lived in experience. So unless we are no longer a society that values one's ability to feel safe in one's home and with one's hard earned belongings, then theft should not be written off as insignificant to a person's feeling of safety even in an urban environment. Resident and writer Nellie Bowles put it best in today's Atlantic article: "You can spend days debating San Francisco crime statistics and their meaning, and many people do. It has relatively low rates of violent crime, and when compared with similarly sized cities, one of the lowest rates of homicide. But what the city has become notorious for are crimes like shoplifting and car break-ins, and there the data show that the reputation is earned. Burglaries are up more than 40 percent since 2019. Car break-ins have declined lately, but San Francisco still suffers more car break-ins—and far more property theft overall—per capita than cities like Atlanta and Los Angeles." https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/06/how-san-francisco-became-failed-city/661199/
The core Progressive error is confusing racism/oppression with the physical necessities of controlling crime, which will never go away. There has never been a logical excuse to give violent crooks a break, for skin color or any other reason.
Many also think the George Floyd thing was vastly over-hyped and he was killed accidentally by a cop sick of struggling with arrest-resisters, which isn't the same as murder. BLM ignores who's killing the most blacks (other blacks) and who's saving the most blacks (cops who remove thugs from mean streets).
Thank you! More to come, and I’m sorry for the danger you and yours felt in SF