[George83728]

In related news, an ABC reporter for Good Morning America recently revealed on air that he was told not to report live from the location of this mall because it wouldn't be safe.

"But it is worth mentioning that we are not at Union Square or the Westfield Mall this morning because we have been advised it is simply too dangerous to be there at this hour"

[bbor]

That seems insane, it’s not a dangerous neighborhood?? Unhoused people are (sometimes) mentally ill, not murderers. And why would they attack a news crew?? Baseless fear mongering

[OfSanguineFire]

> Unhoused people are (sometimes) mentally ill, not murderers.

It is true that the mentally ill are overwhelmingly not dangerous. But as the number of mentally ill people in one place goes up, so do your odds of encountering that minority of mentally ill who are aggressive. In most of the world, you might see one mentally ill person in a day and they are harmless. In parts of California, sometimes it feels like you see a dozen mentally ill homeless in a day, and one of them is berating passersby or worse.

[seanmcdirmid]

Not to split hairs, but the murder of a pregnant (Asian) woman in Seattle’s Belltown by a mentally ill unhoused person indicates that they can be murderers as well. We are pretty shocked as a community, there is a protest going on right now actually.

[tlogan]

Exactly - there were only 4 shooting in last 30 days in TL. That is less than two per week.

[1] jun 12: https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/sanfrancisco/news/early-morning-...

[2] may 22 phttps://sfstandard.com/criminal-justice/two-people-shot-in-f...

[3] Jun 2 https://www.ktvu.com/news/man-wounded-in-broad-daylight-shoo...

[4] jun 5 https://neighbors.ring.com/n/Z1elNLxc2Z

[idlewords]

Angry junkies are not lovable cuddlebugs, and don't always act in completely rational ways.

[Detrytus]

> Unhoused people are (sometimes) mentally ill, not murderers.

The line is pretty thin here, you never know what's going to prompt mentally ill person to kill you.

[George83728]

> Unhoused people are [...] not murderers.

"Too dangerous" obviously includes robberies and assaults, but you've neatly excluded those to narrow the focus of the conversation to murder. Where is this idea coming from, that violent crime doesn't count unless somebody is murdered (or specifically shot: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36374483)?

This attitude exemplifies the problem; that all manner of crime should tolerated from homeless unless they shoot or murder somebody. Only then does it rise to your concern. And in the case of tlogan's comment that I just linked to, even somebody getting stabbed to death doesn't count because they weren't shot. This is how you get situations as described by seanmcdirmid here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36374451 Crazy guy known to be violent is tolerated by local authorities because he hasn't yet killed anybody. No big deal until he murders somebody, only then do people care. This is why the electorate of these cities is the root of the problem, because the electorate don't give a shit about the crime until somebody gets killed.

[simoncion]

Weird. From time to time, I stomp around that part of the neighborhood late at night and also early in the morning and I disagree with this assessment.

Whenever I hear shit like this that doesn't mesh with my on-the-ground assessment, I have to wonder if there's an ulterior motive, and what that might be.

Is someone trying to get Federal funding for policing in the city? Is a group of someones trying to trigger some "I don't have to pay to break my lease because conditions around my business are 'obviously too terrible'" clause so that leaving the city is much, much cheaper? Is someone trying to prevent folks from airing yet more footage of folks sleeping on and doing drugs on the street? Something else?

Dunno.