The stabbing dying of Money App founder Bob Lee this week has sparked concern amongst residents and tech business leaders alike over crime charges in San Francisco.
However specialists say violent crime within the Metropolis by the Bay isn’t larger than different cities of an identical dimension and has truly declined over the past decade.
A 43-year-old man recognized by household and pals as Lee was discovered by police Tuesday morning affected by stab wounds on Most important Avenue within the Rincon Hill neighborhood of San Francisco, in keeping with a San Francisco Police Division information launch. Lee died later at a hospital.
Lee was a chief product officer at cryptocurrency startup MobileCoin and beforehand labored as chief know-how officer on the funds platform Sq., which has since been renamed Block. Lee developed Money App in 2013.
Lee moved to Miami in October however was in San Francisco for a MobileCoin management summit and determined to remain a couple of extra days in an effort to spend time with pals, mentioned his pal Doug Dalton, who had dinner with him this previous Saturday.
Within the wake of Lee’s dying, tech executives, together with Twitter CEO Elon Musk, have decried the violence within the metropolis, the place progressive Dist. Atty. Chesa Boudin was recalled by voters final 12 months after being criticized as “tender on crime” and neglecting to deal with public security and homelessness.
Musk tweeted: “Violent crime in SF is horrific and even when attackers are caught, they’re usually launched instantly.”
Enterprise capitalist Matt Ocko, who was a pal of Lee’s, tweeted that Boudin “and the criminal-loving metropolis council that enabled him and a lawless SF for years, have Bob’s literal blood on their palms.”
Violent crime, outlined by the California Division of Justice as murder, rape, theft and aggravated assault, peaked in 2013 in San Francisco with 7,064 incidents. The speed has fallen over the past decade, right down to 4,796 incidents in 2020 earlier than present process a slight uptick to 4,887 incidents in 2021. The state company has but to launch crime statistics for 2022.
San Francisco Police Commissioner Kevin Benedicto identified that San Francisco’s violent crime price is decrease than that of different main cities.
“General, if you happen to have a look at the final 5 years and 10 years on a longer-term scale, crime is at a historic low,” he mentioned. “San Francisco has public issues of safety like each massive metropolis and it’s unfairly portrayed as being within the midst of a criminal offense wave that isn’t born out of the info.”
Although San Francisco recorded 56 homicides in 2022, the quantity was a lot smaller than different cities of an identical dimension, similar to Denver with 88 homicides, Nashville with 108, Oklahoma Metropolis with 71 and Columbus with 140, in keeping with information from the Main Cities Police Chiefs Assn.
Benedicto emphasised that not a lot info has been launched in regards to the stabbing and the investigation is ongoing.
“You see a variety of hyperbole and false narratives, whether or not it’s in regards to the crime price or individuals making an attempt to attach it to homelessness or different points, however we don’t know if it’s even linked to this incident,” Benedicto mentioned. “I need to encourage individuals to deal with the sufferer and never on advancing a political agenda or exploiting this tragedy.”
Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) additionally pushed again towards the narrative that San Francisco is grappling with excessive charges of violent crime.
“I do assume it’s unlucky that we’re seeing this narrative that San Francisco is a few exceptionally violent place. That’s not true,” he mentioned.
With regard to Lee’s dying, Wiener mentioned “one homicide is just too many.” He additionally criticized Musk’s feedback in regards to the tragedy, calling him “a self-serving opportunist who couldn’t care much less about San Francisco.”
Kimberly Richman, a professor of felony justice and authorized research on the College of San Francisco, famous that for the reason that murder price is low in San Francisco, a rise of some circumstances annually makes the scenario seem extra dire than it’s.
San Francisco police responded to 56 homicides each in 2022 and 2021, up from 46 homicides in 2020 and 41 in 2019, in keeping with police information.
“When individuals house in on one thing like 12 months to 12 months distinction in a class that’s already very small, that appears amplified from 12 months to 12 months,” she mentioned. “That may be mitigated by doing a wider focus and taking a look at crime charges over time and seeing this isn’t actually a lot of a change, however people don’t usually try this.”
Consideration on crime charges within the metropolis has additionally been bolstered by social media and apps similar to Nextdoor, a social networking web site the place neighborhoods can publish suggestions and alerts, Richman mentioned.
“Our crime charges and homicide charges are method decrease than they had been within the Nineties, however within the ‘90s we didn’t have entry to the identical quantity of knowledge within the second,” she mentioned. “The fact is that this stuff had been taking place, however we simply didn’t learn about it to the identical diploma.”
Richman mentioned Lee’s dying has served as a lightning rod for discourse on town’s crime price due to his high-profile standing and the neighborhood by which he was killed.
“A high-profile homicide like Bob Lee, who was a white, rich, upper-class public determine in a neighborhood you don’t affiliate with crimes charges, it’s going to appear prefer it’s right here too and uncontrolled,” she mentioned. “We all know there’s much more consideration paid to violent crimes and homicide by which there was a white sufferer, and so these circumstances actually seize the general public’s consideration.”
Although San Francisco has skilled a comparatively low violent crime price, town has the very best property crime price within the state, and specifically pushed by larceny and automotive break-ins, mentioned Magnus Lofstrom, coverage director of felony justice and a senior fellow on the nonpartisan Public Coverage Institute of California.
Property crime within the metropolis rose by 16.9% in 2021, in keeping with the California Division of Justice’s Prison Justice Statistics Heart. The Bay Space has the very best price of property crime within the state, with a price of two,718 incidents per 100,000 residents.
The rationale for San Francisco’s excessive property price, Lofstrom mentioned, is tough to pinpoint, however a contributing issue could possibly be the massive variety of guests town receives for its dimension.
“Once we generate these crime charges, what we use is the variety of reported crimes per residents of that space,” he mentioned. “There’s numerous vacationers and nonresidential employees coming into town and so they might probably be the victims of those property crimes.”
