This Is Why People Hate San Francisco: Volume 3
Um, Earthquake Today?
Cellular Telephone Industry Association Suing S.F.
Photo du Jour 680
Kanye West Visits Twitter Headquarters
San Franciscans are all too quick to jump down the throats of the fine men and women of the San Francisco Police Department. Because, more or less, it looks cool and sounds like the socially acceptable thing to do. But! More often than not, of course, they're pretty damn helpful. Even to our put-upon cyclists. Take for example, this true tale SFist reader Eric Freeman sent us:
I wanted to share a quick story in support of SF’s men in blue who I haven’t always been to fond of. [Sunday] around 4 PM I was moving a few things up from the crawl space under our house. As I was bring up a backpack and my girlfriends road bike I set the bike down on our porch so I could take the backpack inside. As I was making room for some more things in our entry way the winds we were having blew shut my front door. Less than 30 seconds later I opened the door to bring in the bike and it was gone. Yelling out that the bike was gone my girls face dropped as I ran out the door. I ran up our hill to Utah and didn’t see anyone in sight. I ran down the street to Potrero and few blocks off to the south I saw someone on a bike disappearing into the horizon. I bolted after him feeling hopeless and a little terrified to face my road warrior girl after I got her prized possession stolen.Luckily, after sprinting two blocks, I stumbled across two officers on their dirt bikes just hanging on a corner. I quickly blurted out the crime in progress and one of the two officers took off in pursuit. In the meantime, I was able to give the officer with me a correct description of the bike and over the radio he confirmed his partner apprehended the thief three blocks down in front of SF General. Hats off to the men in blue for jumping into action and saving me from the doghouse back at home.
Way to go, SFPD.
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Road. Warrior. Girl.
Arrests Were Made.
I don't think SFPD deserves praise for doing their job.
It might be nice if they did it more often, and more effectively.
There are plenty of reasons to be critical of SFPD.
i'm cool with praising people for doing their job
praising people for not doing their job, that would be out of line
Nope, you're wrong. It's totally cool.
Plant? Troll? Both?
Excellent choice of graphic to accompany this post. Thanks.
If they knew you hated the cops , I am sure they would have kept eating donuts
Sure, it's nice that the little boy got his bike back but it's a little concerning that we're all so impressed by this story. Isn't that exactly what the cops are supposed to do? Has it really gotten to the point where this is such a rare event that it needs to be celebrated? The cop stopped a fleeting hipster-thief on a bicycle, they didn't leap in front of a flying bullet.
Of course, there's nothing wrong with highlighting the work of particular members of society, if that's what's going on here... Especially those who put their lives on the line. Perhaps next week Brock can give us a profile of a construction worker. The death rate on that job is even higher, which means their hero-meter is higher.
But it's not all about risking death. It's about performing a service to society. Every week there should be a story about people who do their job: receptionists answering phones, customer service agents resolving problems and custodians cleaning bathrooms.
You look cool. You sound socially acceptable.
Nice 'Reality Bites' reference.
It actually says a lot when people of this city find the need to get excited when the police actually do something right. The cops did their job for once, nothing to write your white bread midwestern home about.
It's very unusual, therefore newsorthy, to recover a stolen bike. And a fellow SFist was the lucky one.
Hard to even get police to take a report on a stolen bike. When my bike was stolen, BART police never even entered the serial number into the California stolen property database.
It actually says more about you and alphabetagaga87 when you feel the need to go out of your way and display your superiority by bashing on a simple blog post about a story with a happy ending.
Nobody's holding a parade or handing out medals, the officers aren't even named. It's a simple link to a story about a guy who doesn't normally like cops but found reason to say something good about them.
Everybody hates cops and lawyers, until they need one.
No one is handing out medals, they're bantering on how amazing it is when a motherfucker does their job on a well read SF blog, which is a lot like a parade.
There is a difference between 'trying to sound cool' or whatever you condo folk want to call it and speaking from experience.
Everyone hates cops and lawyers, until they need one, then they realize how worthless they are unless you've got money.
There really is nothing wrong with telling this nice story.
What is annoying is the tone of the article which is all about bashing anyone who has a problem with the police, and the suggestion that people who have problems with the police have them just to look cool.
When I lived in West Oakland there was a rotting body found in a garbage bag on our block. I called the police station about it. Five or six of my neighbors also called the police station about it. It took them about FIVE DAYS to do anything about it. Then it was discovered that it was a dead HUMAN body. A dead human body was rotting on our block and stinking it up for at least five more days than it needed to be. Lots of kids on that street too. I can't imagine why it took that long...
Granted, that's the OPD, but I don't think the situation would have been much different if it was in SF, in Bayview. If the bag had been found in a nice Oakland neighborhood like Rockridge, it would have been picked up in a couple of hours.
I have a lot of friends who hate the police because they have been hassled by them for no particular reason. I think they have good reasons to hate the police. I'm sure you all think that anyone hassled by the police is just getting what they deserve, but very often that's not the case.
What's really going on here is that you hate hipsters because you're not as cute as them, and since they hate the police, you feel like you have to point out why the police is awesome.