Cash App founder stabbed to death in San Francisco Tech exec Bob Lee has died after he was discovered stabbed in San Francisco in the early hours of Tuesday. Lee, well regarded in Silicon Valley, was the chief product officer of cryptocurrency firm MobileCoin. He was previously CTO of digital payments giant Square, today known as Block, and founded Cash App, which is used by …
So exactly how many street muggers of San Francisco have you personal experience of over the decades? Both wanna-be and actual?
None of course. Let me guess. You have never lived in SF. You have never even visited SF. And you most certain dont know which SF neighborhoods have been high crime / high risk for decades. No mater how many residential high rises they might build.
If and when the perp is found he will be just like every other of these utterly worthless parasites. He will have a long criminal record. Very long. He will probably have done jail time. Most of his victims will be in the neighborhood he grew up in. Where the vast majority of the people grew up not becoming criminal parasites. Here is some advice, the only people who have the slightest sympathy for criminals are those who dont live in high crimes areas and who dont have to deal with street crims as part of their daily life. Those who do keep all our sympathy and compassion for the victims. Screw the criminals. Lock them up until they reach the age when the recidivism rates start dropping off fast. In the mid 40's.
Now the irony here is that the victim in all probability would still be alive today if the Dot Com'ers like him and their ilk in SF had not voted so enthusiastically for Props 47 and 57. Because if those Props had not passed in 2014/2016 the murderer would most likely have been in jail rather than on the streets. Although given Boudins track record like with the beating death of baby Synciere Williams, I'd would not be surprised if his refusal to prosecute dangerous criminals not part of this story too.
The victim was very unlucky. He was unwittingly on a dangerous part of Main. Those blocks have been high risk since I first started parking under the bridge when in that area. Before Loma Prieta. Those new shiny residential towers dont change the long term crime geography of the City. When the criminals were locked up the area was pretty OK. But I never once let my guard down over the years when in the area at night. But now all the petty criminals are back on the streets again, well, the old crime geography is reasserting itself. As they are also discovering in places like Hayes Valley and the Mission.
So all you new comers, stay safe. Maybe talk to some of us locals who remember SF in the 1990's and earlier about just how Mad Max some parts of the City was pre Three Strikes. Because that's what's returning. Courtesy of Props 47/57 and DA's like Boudin and Gascon.
The USA is a scary place to roam freely, i.e. you need to worry about finding yourself in the "wrong" neighbourhood. Crime rates are terrible.
1 in 200 people are incarcerated: "As of January 2023, the incarceration rate of the United States is the sixth highest in the world, at 505 per 100,000 people" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_rate
Odd when you consider how much the various parts of the US govt spends on trying to fix homelessness, drugs and the such. It is as if the money never gets where it is needed.
It is also as if they are trying to keep certain groups as a perpetual underclass but feeding them the lie that 'only we can help you, keep voting for us and we will help you' while getting very VERY rich from it.
California spends billions on the homeless problem but most of it ends up in the pockets of the political crony elite. If anyone tries to actually help, such as providing shelter or medical help to the homeless, the local govt the 'activists' (all with a serious case of white saviour complex) will attack them to ensure the status quo.
So you obviously have the slightest clue about the US then. The real one. Not the fantasy one that lives in your head.
You do know that around 70% of US Federal government expenditure is on "socialist" programmes. With most states being even higher.
And yes, there are US politicians and their supporters who want to revive straight up marxist "utopia". You know, just like they had in the Soviet Union and the occupied Warsaw Block. And they are just as dangerous ignorant and stupid as their equivalent in the UK. Very dangerous cranks.
This is what happens when you have an education system which results in students who are basically illiterate and innumerate graduating and being praised by a teaching union who are more interested in grievance politics, moaning how 2+2=4 is white supremacy (Hindu-Arabic numerals anyone?) and telling certain demographics that it isn't their fault they are poor and stupid, it is the faut of 'the system'.
Don't go leaving the UK out of this. UK police managed to summon/arrest in 5.2% of reported cases last year. That's down from 15% 5yrs ago. Note that's summon/arrest, not prosecute, and *reported* cases. Many now don't bother reporting, or only do to get a crime number.
I cite a case this past month in which, in broad daylight in Leeds city centre, some scum bloke outside our office spent five mins rifling through a Deliveroo bike, then noticed an iPhone in a car next to it. He retrieved a rock, threw it 3x at the passenger window and, having failed to get in, went for a half brick from the end of the road and threw that through the driver's window. He missed with his first rock and bent the roof such that it looked like it'd probably write off the fairly new Audi SUV, but made off with a 6yo iPhone with a smashed screen.
I retrieved two angles of a 4k video replete with good stills of his face and distinctive clothing. Our founder watched the whole thing and could back up the video (shouldn't be needed). I then identified the suspect sitting with a gang in a known location and informed the police, asking them 4x to go grab him and providing the stills.
The investigating officer took almost a week to come to me to get the video. There was no record on the case of the stills or location of the man. Nobody had been to get him despite him having been sat there for over five hours. The video was deemed "inconclusive" (?!? - how?!?) and he'd had his hand up to his face 3 of 4x he'd walked past (not the last time where we'd got the stills) so was deemed he'd sufficiently camouflaged himself.
What a waste of time and a complete embarrassment to the UK our police services are.
Well the answer to the compete disinterest of the local police in the crime evidence you had can be found in the bio of the West Yorkshire Chief Constable.
https://www.westyorkshire.police.uk/about-us/chief-officer-team/chief-constable-john-robins
>>
n 2012 John became an Assistant Chief Constable, taking the lead on Workforce, Development and Standards. He subsequently took on the role of the Assistant Chief Constable in charge of Local Policing across the Western side of West Yorkshire.
In 2014 John became the Temporary Deputy Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police, leading on Professional Standards, Ethics and Equality. In 2017 John was appointed as Deputy Chief Constable
<<
Looks like we have a right little political buzzword box ticker here. So back at the station guess which kind of crimes, and which kind of crime victims, get highest priority when filling out your weekly and monthly work reports.
Your mistake was not reporting the perp for misgendering a random passerby. Had you done this, every patrol car within a 50 mile radius would immediately have sped to the rescue.
Hurty words is about the only offense that the police bother investigating these days.
What an absolute Rigsby comment that is.
It's a point of fact that police officers have been called to addresses over misgendering offences in the UK, however much the likes of you would wish to deny it.
The force said it had received an allegation on 15 October "in relation to a number of tweets which were posted in October 2018".
"A thorough investigation is being carried out to establish whether any criminal offences have taken place," it said.
"A 44-year-old woman has been asked to attend a voluntary interview in relation to the allegation as part of our ongoing investigation."
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-surrey-47638527
Now, when serious crimes such as the one described by the OP are ignored, despite bountiful irrefutable evidence, I would say that the police have got their priorities wrong.
...has much higher property and non fatal violent crime rates and very low case clearance rates. Meanwhile the guy who burgled my friends apartment in SF I was house sitting at the time and stole my laptops, he went to jail.
So when was the last time you heard of that happening in the UK? The 1980's?
And strangely enough the only effective way of greatly reducing the crime rate is to lock up criminals. As Three Strikes proved. Because it seems when they are locked up they cannot commit more crime. Funny that. Because most petty crime is committed by those with long criminal records. And most serious crime is committed those with a history of petty crime.
Plus not a good idea to quote a source whose primary source on this particular subject is Statistica. Says it all really.
>> USA... scary... worry about "wrong" neighbourhood
It doesn't really feel any scarier to me today
But... I grew up in some pretty bad neighborhoods & learned to spot "hazards".
This was Late 60's thru early 80's but... I don't believe the overall percentage who exhibit antisocial behavior has really changed much.
But... steadily increasing populations have strained existing systems, resulting in more people living in "desperate situations".
I would not call most of the people I know who spent time in prison..unlucky & didn't get rehabilitated so I'm not a big fan of their being incarcerated.
Not sure what the solution would be.
OTOH... I have met a couple people who were truly evil, scared me enough to consider incarceration as the only solution for them.
I had a night out in The Mission in the 1990s.
Felt very safe and comfortable.
Compared to Las Vegas in the same year when I just couldn’t wait to get out.
I guess times have changed.
We lived in a shared house in an affluent part of Walnut Creek in the East Bay. We didn’t have enough door keys for everyone so the front door was never locked. Never saw any crime at all in 2 years other than what we did ourselves.
There are plenty of working class people in San Francisco who get by without resorting to murder or crime. Like the ones running small stores and restaurants who have to put up with getting robbed and vandalized regularly while trying to run their business, or a security guard getting shot dead or another one having his head smashed in (by a skateboarder) and becoming a permanent human vegetable (the skateboarder got off scott free by the way).
But never mind that - how dare you assume it was poor fent/meth junkie murderer who did it? It could have been highly functional bitcoin conman with a plan to rip some of Bob Lee's bitcoins but need Bob dead to for the plan to work.
I remember a couple of incidents where TV news reporters were held up and their gear taken in SF. That's ok though since it's a very easy city to get clean syringes and have staff on hand to hit you with some Narcan if you OD. If you do get busted, they've made the process so simple that you are only inconvenienced for a couple of hours before you are let go with a very mild scolding and an appointment with a civil rights mob that will help you craft your defense so you can be seen as the victim and not the person with the bleeding wrist and lack of a watch.
Not as bad as Mississippi, where a black construction worker was found decapitated with his limbs severed and strewn about after his mother got a disturbing call saying his foreman wanted him dead and the cops there found nothing suspicious about his death. At least the SFPD identified this as a murder. Have to think it was actually a hit.
Reminds me when I was stationed in Meridian MS ( Navy training in the late seventies).
A black kid from my barracks was shot in town one weekend, apparently for wandering into a "white" neighborhood.
I ended up in a "black" part of town once too and I wasn't exactly welcomed but... at least they didn't shoot me!
Although it was most probably a random robbery, it is also possible he was killed by someone who knows him. For example, someone who was extremely rich until recently but then became very poor and desperate, who calculated he could appropriate some of Bob Lee's bitcoins without detection if Bob Lee was suddenly dead.
I just see lots of the usual bien pensant twaddle for the usual low information Guardian reader types here..
So based on four decades of actually knowing that neighborhood, Harrison / Main, that has always been a dodgy neighborhood. Sticking a bunch of very expensive residential towers in an area that can be iffy during the day and is outright sketchy after dark changes nothing. For generations it was was a warehouse / light industry / small business area just off the Embarcadero which had quite a few flop houses / cheap hotels / cheaper bars for sailors before the City cleared most of them out back in the 1960's and 1970's. Not quite the most dangerous part of SOMA, thats 6'th and Mission, but after dark those streets were always a great place to get jumped. And still are.
When I had a bunch of evening meetings on Beale St a few years ago often parked on Main if there was nothing on Beale under the Bay Bridge. And knowing the area well since the 1980's I checked the street carefully before I got out of my car and watched everyone carefully while on the street. Dressed down and made sure my messenger bag was completely strapped down leaving both arms free. Also carried my old all metal zenbook which makes a great weapon if needed. So never had a problem. Even though at few times I was on those streets I was being cased up as a potential target. Pretty common in the bad parts of SF.
As for the guy who was murdered. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time. My first reaction when I saw the surveillance video was - he was dressed like that? On that street? At that time of night? His whole get up just screamed - I am a very Rich Tech Bro' - Rob Me... Now there is unlucky and then there is just outright stupid. He would have been easily spotted at that time of night dressed like that from up to a block away by the mugger. There have been a whole bunch of really brutal robberies and attacks in SOMA / Embarcadero the last few years but I have a hard time extending much sympathy for some Tech Bro just passing through showing that level of arrogance and utter obliviousness. I'll keep it for all the ordinary folk who are victims. Of which they are far too many.
And the perp. Just another worthless scumbag. Who would have been in jail if it had not been for politicians bankrolled by the Tech Bro's and their ilk. Think of it as another example of Aint Karma a Bitch. These people have made my life and the lives of all other ordinary San Franciscans a lot more dangerous over the last decade. So no tears shed when they end up as victims of their own politics. None. Because they move away when things go bad. They always do. Leaving the rest of us to live in the dangerous city they created.
Brutal I'm afraid, but honest. And for those newcomers to SF who were not around in the early / mid 1990's. You aint seen nothing yet. Its going to get a lot lot worse. So better work on those street skills pronto. And self defense classes / pepper spray / mace etc would be a good idea too. Anything that makes you not look like an easy victim.
Stay safe.
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