July 23, 2007
A Rare Monday SFist Blotter
Okay, we don't usually do crime wrapups on Monday, but we're starting to actually get more and more freaked out about the state of public safety in the city these days.
If you were anywhere near 17th and Capp Street around 6 p.m. last Friday, you couldn't miss the seven extremely loud shots being fired, and the subsequent mess of sirens and ambulance screeching onto the scene. One of our readers on the scene sent in the picture of the aftermath, above. Turns out the shooter was a "heavyset" male disgruntled with the victim after an argument. The victim is in stable condition.
Later that evening, there was a second shooting just down the street, at 19th and Capp, around 11:40 p.m. No word on their status, and we also note that two people were killed on that same stretch of Capp Street just on July 4 -- could the SFPD maybe send more patrols that way?
And we see in the tips line that someone's looking for information about a possible shooting around 24th and York from Sunday too. We can't find anything about that (and we're a little troubled that there are now so many shootings around town that a lot of them never even make our usual news sources anymore) -- but we've had some luck checking out the "Bay City News briefs" on CBS 5. (Note that the entries turn over pretty quickly, though.)
Picture of the scene at 17th and Mission sent in by stalwart reader Ben Hopfer. Though we love seeing reader pictures, we're glad you weren't hurt, Ben!
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I had a close encounter with a car while walking at Market and Buchanan (Duboce) Sunday afternoon. What made this one noteworthy is that the driver had some sort of argument with the woman in the passenger seat, so said driver just got out of the car while making the right turn onto Buchanan...leaving the car in gear. It nearly hit me because it started rolling forward.
I didn't stick around to see what happened other than to note that the woman slid into the driver's seat and steered into the gas station at that corner. I could hear her screaming for the guy to come back. I had to get out of there before I hurt somebody.
Echoing that - it's almost impossible to find out what's been going on crimewise by using the Chron and the television news. At this point, the only way to find out what's going on in my 'hood is to look at the neighborhood listserv. Sad state of affairs, this.
The muggy weather is probably indirectly related to the crime wave. Sociologists say that crimes happen more often in warm weather, since people are out and about more and tempers tend to "flare" due to the heat.
Another by-product of global warming. Yay!
there was another shooting at about 8:30pm on Saturday, im pretty sure it was fatal. there was a fight in front of the liquor store at 24th/York and someone got shot in the face, crawled into his car, drove part way down the street and died.
i've seen no report of this nor of the shooting at 19th/Valencia last friday where my roomate got hit in the back and two others were either hit or killed.
i second what SFist Dan said above, its fucking scary to think that these things happen on a nightly basis and still get minimal attention
But we can't worry about neighborhood crime - we've got a City Hall that needs to be orange!!!
umm, they won't send more police patrols to the Mission unless some rich, white, government person's child gets killed. Remember that senator's (or something) son that got killed a few years ago. The cops cleaned that shit up and ran the hookers and drug dealers outta the Mission and into the Tenderloin/Polk Gulch. A few weeks later they all returned. They have a police station on Valencia, but you almost never see any cops in that hood. WTF?
Yeah what's up with the reporting and all the shootings? Friend of mine just got shot on Wednesday at Hampshire and 20th. Two young kids attempted to rob him. He ran and got shot in the arm - should have been his back (and much worse) but he turned to see if they were chasing him just as he got shot.
Also about 10 cop cars (not exaggerating) raced down Valencia between 19th/18th last Saturday the 14th around 10/11pm. Never did find out what that was about.
WTF is up period.
San Francisco news sucks ass! They never report on anything that requires an actual reporter - hell they won't even copy/paste a news story. Unless it's weather, traffic and sports you can forget about it. The only way to know what's going on is to hang outside SF General where all the shooting victims arrive.
I can't believe our ineffectual, pathetic excuse for a mayor is going to coast to reelection when shit like this is going on. I don't think we'd see any real response unless it was rich yuppies getting shot.
This City is bipolar when it comes to crime. Cops don't do shit because we won't let them. We can't have it both ways
I live at 26th and South Van Ness and NONE of the two dozen shootings over the past 5 years have made into ANY newspaper or news broadcast.
What to do?
Share your local news on SFist.com ... be the citizen journalist.
Here's the SFPD online:
http://www.sfgov.org/site/police_index.asp
And what kind of urban newbies think that every crime is reported in the newspaper!? Crime exceeds column inches, and it has for a long, long time.
Or put another way, what kind of tragic hipster or aspiring yuppie moves into the Mission and is surprised by the rampant crime there? Only the wilfully ignorant. The Mission is a festering hole of human depravity. When I can walk through there and not smell shit or piss, or step around broken glass and needles, then I'll love it even more.
seriously agree with #13
I've known three people who were killed (one a cousin when I was a child) and two others who have been shot over the years in SF. This stuff has been going on for decades in the Mission/P-hill.
And further, when one of those guys was killed (a kid I knew all my life) I finally found a tiny article buried in the Chron that mentioned two other young guys who had been killed that weekend. Just stated drive by, no name, and likely "gang related". This is repeated every weekend year after year
I've lived at 19th and Capp for some years now, and can attest that the neighborhood has gotten substantially scarier over the last few months. I think it correlates with a spike in streetwalkers and their pimps. The pimps are easy to spot— they usually cruise the street in (pardon me) pimped-out rides and sometimes sit in their parked cars for extended periods. Keep an eye out for the dude in the white Cadillac Escalade with gold trim who parks on Capp between 17th and 20th— he's dealing and/or pimping, and looks pretty mean. I try to avoid eye contact with anyone who doesn't look like either a hipster or a Latino worker.
I noticed an increased police presence over the weekend, but of course that will pass in a few days and we'll be right back where we were.
It's a paradox that the housing prices have grown tremendously yet the street life is getting nastier.
Also, hurray for SFist for listing this item— this is an example of how the New Media (blogs, newslists, social networking sites, etc.) leapfrogs over the mainstream media and gets the real news out to the people who need it.
There was another shooting today, this time downtown. A man was shot in the leg during a drive-by at...5th and Market! At 2 in the afternoon. He collapsed next to the chess tables on the corner there. I can only imagine how many witnesses there were for this incident, undoubtedly dozens of tourists included.
Even more amazing when you realize how many people we keep locked up compared to the rest of the world:
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_pri-crime-prisoners
Did anyone in or around Hayes Valley hear the series of gunshots (at least 8 of them) last Thursday night, July 19, around 11:30pm? There were the usual sirens, etc. but I cannot find any information on this.
This is why it's called Capp Street .. as in i'm gonna put a Capp in yo ass.
As noted, if the DA would ever prosecute anything, or of the SFPD would use any modern techniques to prevent crime (ever heard of Compstat you idiots?) it might help.
So long as we keep this Mayor in power and hold onto this rediculous excuse for a Chief, we deserve all the fear that we have. These cops cannot and will not do anythin for us because they are not allowed to. I have friends who are cops in SF and they tell me that they will not do anything more than they have to for the fear of the liability placed upon them and the lack of support from the bosses. They get a paycheck nonetheless.