Tough way to close out 2021 in The City when the following stories were reported during the final month:
“A Good Samaritan was attacked by a person on Howard Street in broad daylight who was wielding a knife and obviously mentally distressed.”
The Good Samaritan’s life was spared thanks to the police response but he’s a business owner and may possibly now move his company elsewhere without having to worry about our local crazies scaring customers away. Can’t blame him.
“A Sacramento man was shot and killed in San Francisco, the victim of a robbery gone bad. Turns out he was the father of 3 children ranging in age from 7 months to 10 years.”
And, “over 3,375 new cases of theft in San Francisco were documented for the year ending November, the majority of which were car break-ins.”
One of those cases involved 2 women who were visiting San Francisco and were sitting in their parked car, a rental, in the middle of the day with their 2 young children aged 2 and 4. All of a sudden their window was shattered and an individual wearing a ski mask reached in and helped himself to the personal items of the visiting tourists while their children were petrified.
Doesn’t anyone think that people wearing ski masks breaking into occupied vehicles is a bit much even for San Francisco? Pretty good odds those victims won’t be back.
And when is enough enough?
Consider . . . A 68 year old tourist was outside the Hyatt Regency Hotel with her 2 grandchidren ages 5 & 7 years old at around 7 p.m when 2 individuals came running up to her trying to snatch her cellphone away. The victim put up a struggle but the suspects overpowered her and took the phone.
Sergeant Michael Bushnell was driving home having just completed his watch at Central Station and observed the entire incident. He immediately checked on the victim and her grandchildren who were crying over what just occurred. He then had the victim call 9-1-1 while he called Sergeant Matthew Parra who was still working at Central and described what just happened —good move!
Sergeant Parra and Sergeant Bushnell were all over this one. Both sergeants dropped the net securing the perimeter with the help of Officer Kyle Simmons, Officer Clarens Caine, Officer Bryan Neuerburg, Officer Juan Lara, Officer John Gardner, Officer Eric Barreneche, and Officer James Johnson.
Didn’t take long at all for the Central Station Calvary to locate and arrest the felons responsible for the theft.
Outstanding work!
But it seems that the biggest story of all this year that has only intermittently raised curiosity from the media is the fact that 43 San Francisco Police Officers are presently attending a 3-day retirement seminar as of this writing. Some of them are getting ready to leave the Department shortly and pursue other interests, an opportunity well-deserved.
That information, in and of itself, is not a banner headline. Not unless you throw in the fact that another 51 members are lined up to attend the same seminar in the middle of this coming March. Pretty simple to do the math on that one . . .43 and 51 equal a potential personnel problem that may accelerate quickly and it’s probably not going to get any better — unfortunately.
After all, the day the Mayor announced a police intervention in the Tenderloin District in order to, “end all the bullshit that has destroyed our city,” there were 2 shootings and 1 stabbing that night . . . This could be a very long winter unless we all pull together to make San Francisco the City people want to visit and that starts off with, thankfully, City Hall’s support.
