The only thing I'm "championing" (just pointing out, really) is that certain populations seem to enjoy using anecdotal tragedy to promote their own quasi-apocalyptic worldview re: some American cities, despite all available data contradicting that worldview.

I'm sure everyone here appreciates the update on your locale, and your own stories of property crime and/or non-criminal (yet perhaps unnerving?) personal interactions. Alas, none of that appears to be relevant to either the submitted story, or homicide or any other violent crime.

The problem with saying that SF has relatively low violent crime is that it ignores the constant, extremely aggressive verbal assault that people are just accustomed to. In the years I lived there, I had people scream at me that they were going to kill/stab/etc. me at least a couple of dozen times (I would describe this as violent crime). Of course, if you call SFPD, they'll just tell you it's not an issue and ignore you, so those don't go into any statistics.

You just extrapolated that narrative up in your head. The OP said nothing that remotely hinted at that.

> It feels a bit like you're championing a narrative of "See, it's not so bad!

Steven Pinker has made a career out of this. Ironically a lot of his adherents are quick to jump on the "this is the safest time in human history" statistical warbling when discussing an issue they feel doesn't personally affect them.

This happened to me in much smaller and "safer" cities as well. This is America

It’s impossible to reason with anyone from SF who thinks the city isn’t that bad. Reality is most large cities are absolute trash now. But at least where i live i can talk with people who aren’t living in some reality distortion field

> It feels a bit like you're championing a narrative of "See, it's not so bad! You'll just get your stuff stolen and your car vandalized!" I wouldn't feel so smug about that.

"You can be mad but I guess I don’t personally view my car as an extension of myself and I’ve never really felt violated any of the 15 or so times my car was broken in to. Once a guy accidentally left a cool knife in my car so if it keeps happening you might get a little treat." --Seth Rogen

I’ve been accosted by strange people in multiple cities if that’s the standard of disorder now. Not saying it’s nice for that to happen but I don’t think it says much about SF.

I also lived in San Francisco. Was never threatened by a random weirdo. Lived in a different city and was threatened (he said he would beat me to death). But somehow the city I live doesn't have constant bellyaching about how dangerous it is despite having a higher violent crime rate than San Francisco.

>It feels a bit like you're championing a narrative of "See, it's not so bad! You'll just get your stuff stolen and your car vandalized!" I wouldn't feel so smug about that.

You are making the poster's exact point for them. Take a step back, breathe, think.

And as other folks in this topic are pointing out, anecdotes like that are simply misleading. San Francisco is not a high crime US city. Period. It is not. It is middle-of-the-pack at worst. Nor is it getting "worse faster". It saw a crime wave across the pandemic that is receding now, just like most of the world.

It's just wrong. You're wrong. Any narrative to the effect of "SF is unsafe because of ..." is wrong, because SF is not unsafe in any measurable way.

And more to the point: those very (wrong) narratives are simply out of control among the prevailing demographic here on HN. And frankly it's getting kinda toxic.

Which all has jack and shit to do with this case.

> I just simply moved out.

Thank you!

No, it would be the narrative where multiple HN commenters in the previous thread took this as a launching point to call for a full authoritarian crackdown of the homeless.