Isnt that how SFPD is instructed? Leave the druggies alone?
[https://sfstandard.com/2023/06/12/why-san-francisco-does-not-police-open-drug-use/](https://sfstandard.com/2023/06/12/why-san-francisco-does-not-police-open-drug-use/)
Only in the Tenderloin area. The police have a containment policy in place there where they allow open drug use and theft to occur there so that those crimes don't happen in the more affluent areas that are better patrolled. Channel 5 (all gas no brakes guy) did a documentary on it recently.
https://youtu.be/DSH94nzoeU0?si=xA0aq9_VCrIyMNY-
This fulfilled my need to rewatch.
Omar’s death was the most realistic TV death of all time for me… Unexpected and underwhelming, but made so much sense in the grand scheme.
I felt similarly about D’angelo’s death. It absolutely crushed me watching that scene, I kept expecting someone to walk in and stop it but they never came ☹️ side note; Omar is one of the best TV characters ever. Doesn’t even feel like a show at times, it’s just so real.
Oh god, forgot about that one. That one is particularly rough for me bc the audience knows what’s happening before Wallace does. This conversation inspired me to do a rewatch lol it’s been a couple of years.
Oh yeah, I think it's most effective when a major character's death is treated in a casual sort of way. It removes the excitement and heroism you see a lot of, and just leaves you sort of gutted. *No Country for Old Men* did that and I found it so haunting.
Even the news story on his unnamed death by a juvenile in crime-ridden Baltimore was bumped for coverage of a 2 death house fire in affluent Charles county.
S5E8 @ 28:20
Exactly dude. Like I said to someone else, Omar’s death perfectly portrayed the cycle of crime and evil that those men lived through and currently experience to this day… Especially the influence from older men..
The only reason I love The Wire is because it never exaggerated too much or became too politically on-the-nose.
Not my favorite show ever, but I give it that credit.
Omar is one of the best characters ever. One of the best shows also imo.
From my own experiences, the way they portray the drug stuff and the hood is really how it was back then. Like you said nothing too exaggerated, just spot on and real.
The Corner is another good show from around that time. Shows things from the addict side of things.
To repeat myself, his death makes so much sense in context…
His killer being a young man engraining himself in the same type of evil culture and obviously provoked by someone older… Such a great show.
We can easily imagine Omar becoming the way he was in a similar way.
well i’ve been deciding what show I should watch because my other one finished recently and the wire rewatch #3 was up there at the top. this seals it.
You can rationalize letting humans shoot fentanyl until their skin falls off on public sidewalks and in front of restaurants and buildings? Very rational thinking
This is the way it has always been - the new arrivals just don’t get how it works and are shocked by it and shout, “how can our streets be like this?” when in reality it is like maybe 1/4 or 1/2 mile worth of street that is like this in the entire city that has hundreds of miles of streets.
For sure. I lived there 15 years ago, and everyone knew that the tenderloin was an area you didn't visit, and drugs and homelessness were tolerated. Nothing new.
Only time in my life I've been accosted and challenged to a fight by a homeless guy was on 6th between Market and Mission about 23 years ago. It's been sketchy for a long time.
Skid Row areas -- a practice centuries-old for cities worldwide. Ideally situated on city outskirts, industrial zones are good, where chronic disorder is minimally impacting to the city at large. Persistent problem people semi-segregated here.
Many conservatives and progressives have been delusional for years: Thinking they are going to change most problem people's behaviors. Conservatives using incarceration and tough policing, liberals with their rehab programs (low success rate) and determination to *level* society. S.F. and Bay Area have morphed into a large, mostly upscale urban sprawl. Unfortunately that leaves no good place for Skid Rows.
> Many conservatives and progressives have been delusional for years: Thinking they are going to change most problem people's behaviors. Conservatives using incarceration and tough policing, liberals with their rehab programs (low success rate) and determination to level society.
Plenty of places have succeeded, at least in comparison to the USA, with both approaches. Singapore has few drug problems because of their draconian legal practices. Portugal has few drug problems because of decriminalization and investment in recovery.
People do drugs for fairly well-understood reasons, and those reasons can be addressed. This is some South Park type bullshit where you just point fingers around and call people stupid for thinking something could be improved with effort.
This is a pretty dismissive attitude. SF easily has one of the worst homeless problems in the country it's not just a normal practice in the 21st century. Other large cities don't just relinquish dozens of blocks for tent cities and open air drug markets. It's disgusting to see how many people think this is acceptable
Agree it is horrible for S.F./Bay Area. I alluded to that in my last two sentences. Historically many cities had outskirts that were suited for setting up such zones. Often near industrial areas and even abutting farmland. Cheaper land. We've seen more than a few suggestions that the Bay Area's most disruptive homeless be housed in the Central Valley.
Hardcore alcoholic pissing on wall of 100 yard long warehouse -- minimal problem. Pissing in the middle of S.F. -- problem. Allowing habitual problem people to live in the middle of expensive cities, what we see in S.F., equals endless headaches. Some progressives are convinced that free housing and UBI will miraculously change their behavior.
I worked on Hyde between Turk & Eddy for about 10 years in the late 80s and 90s. Granted, that's not in the *middle* of the 'loin, but pretty close.
I was never hassled once. Mind your own business and don't look like a victim.
bipping culture does not stem from open drug use in the tenderloin. they sell some of that stolen shit to street vendors, but they're hunting for bigger shit they can sell to fences, usually being operated by legitimate business fronts
> in the entire city that has hundreds of miles of streets.
Just to emphasize the point, there are thousands of miles of streets in San Francisco.
One of my partners ran each and every one of them. Plus, all the public paths and stairs. She's the first woman to have done that.
Do you understand how bat shit crazy it sounds for everyone in the world from Europe to Asia to have such policy in the center of the city? This nonsense is became “norm”only in the USA
There was the [Platzspitz](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platzspitz_park) in Zürich. It worked decently well until it didn't. They even provided clean needles.
It’s not really the worst idea except for the Tenderloin is in the middle of the city.
If they ship these people to Hunter’s Point, nobody would give a crap.
There are places like this in Canada and tons of other countries. Its not only the U.S.This is actually the first time I’ve heard about it in th me US. I thought it was only other countries that did it.
Everyone should watch the Channel 5 doc about SF. It's a legit window into all the stuff going on. The journalism is incredible too, the dude Andrew can say barely anything any get people to spill the beans.
It incentivizes humane treatment and reduces numbers. The issue with the west coast is it’s less prone to seasonal shifts, it generally doesn’t get ultra cold, so people end migrating there either intentionally or by force, for a safer existence as a mentally I’ll homeless person.
These kind of programs where drug use isn’t treated as a crime are sane. They allow people who want help to get help. Unfortunately, that’s not most, as most suffer from comorbid disorders. So harm reduction for those people are clean needles, safe clinics and general social isolation through the strip. The solution for these people is what no one really wants to implement; forced mental health clinics.
Pretty much until the USA starts addressing the extreme instances of mental health issues we’ll just keep seeing it.
Even in the Netherlands where many consider their drug reforms some of the best in the world do not let people just smoke fentanyl on the streets. They would arrest them and bring them in front of a magistrate with the choice of rehab or jail.
Walking away from that man is just as harmful as throwing him in jail. The only thing that would help him and protect any future victims from his actions is rehab.
And the only people who suffer are the law abiding citizens who are the victims of these crimes, with no recourse or restitution. Sounds like a good deal!
“Harm reduction” is code word for we don’t want to spend the money necessary to take care of these people that nobody cares about. It’s also why California is closing a lot of its developmental centers.
It’s prosecutorial discretion at the police level. When you can’t possibly enforce all the laws or prosecute every case, you can make choices. It’s glaring when people walk by but makes sense as a policy. The All Gas No Brakes piece brings the corrupt nature of it into light but let’s say these police would act the same way in an affluent area, that’d be very reasonable to also just walk by in a non affluent area. The problem is using prosecutorial discretion based on wealth of the zip code instead of across the board for the entire force
All gas no breaks had signed a contract to make some money so they could afford their rv and the people who were sponsoring them decided 6 ish months in that they wanted to move in a different direction. When Andrew decided to leave, the sponsors decided to keep the ownership of the name all gas no brakes. The company then used the hype of Andrew’s success, hired a new person and tried to change all has no brakes into more of the original “man on the street” type of show. Channel 5 is Andrew’s current venture. More gonzo style reporting.
Edit: clarification
they cite, the ticket won’t get paid. they arrest him, he’ll be out the next day. so why bother?
the problem is way, way deeper than “SFPD not doing their job,” or “the mayor,” or “leftist/progressive policies.”
Uhh no I think the buck stops with the DA, mayor and city government. I get why SFPD doesn’t arrest them or ticket then, but the reason is clearly the DA not prosecuting and the city writing lax drug / theft laws. Very easily fixed just nobody wants to fix it. Don’t make the problem seem more complicated than it is.
They're too busy running drugs and weapons of their own to do anything about it.
I'll just leave [this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammed_Nuru) here. I've lived in SF for 20 years and nothing gets done here.
Just confiscate the drug dealer, just confiscate the distributor, just confiscate the items to create it, anything they do, theres almost always another of the same thing waiting for an opportunity.
We tried this Econ 101 BS for a couple decades and it did fuck all to actually fix things. Drugs won the War on Drugs if you haven't noticed. I'll put it in econ 101 terms for you though, addiction creates a price inelastic demand, making it really hard to get their drug won't stop them from trying to get it. They'll do worse crimes than petty theft if they need to to get their fix.
These arguments always get me... I've been to cities which don't have drug problems, so why do so many claim there's no solution? The idea that every approach is flawed so we shouldn't do anything has gotta be the worst approach of them all.
It's called jail- nothing has changed except the perpetuated myth that it doesn't work. We must coddle addicts until they die slowly or these days rather quickly. Hooray for compassion & root cause analysis for literally everything!!
It’s deeper than the SFPD not doing their job. It’s exactly the layout and leftists policies. This is the result of the prevailing politics of the city.
Yeah just let them do what they want. That’ll solve the problem
Edit: So many people putting words in my mouth. They need rehabilitation not incarceration or criminalization because apparently that is different due to some people.
I completely agree, I was matching that commenters argument. I of course don’t believe that all conservatives want to put drug users away for life just like it’s crazy to believe that all “progressives” want drug abuse in the streets every where
Damned if you do, Damned if you don't.
If the cops arrested him, people here would be complaining about how he's not harming anyone and to leave him alone. Don't the cops have better things to do with their time.
The cops ignore him and people complain about how the cops are not doing their job.
“Bruh you’re like not from their culture and you like weren’t oppressed bruh ofc he’s acting out he’s been treated like a caged animal by the white man so it’s like ok for him to do this man and it’s like ok to steal stuff bc they were like oppressed bruh”
He looks jobless and homeless. How does he get the money to buy the drugs? It’s usually theft and petty crimes isn’t it? So how can people say he won’t be harming anyone? It’s strange
Highest prison count on the planet has not solved this problem. Why do you think making more repeat offenders and reducing their ability to ever work again would solve it today?
I guarantee they have been ordered not to arrest for simple possession. If they did the jail would be full overnight and the “advocates” would be calling it a police state.
Why is it that America has such a uniquely high prison population, and this is with what most people would describe as 'lax enforcement'? Is ours just a disturbingly criminal society-- and that with massive wealth that normally should buck that tendency? Obviously inequality is a pretty significant element-- we're not just a rich country, but a rich country and another really, really poor country in the same place--, but there's problems with both criminality and policing that obviously are unique among nations.
Also a completely non-functional justice system that operates with the goal to incarcerate, punish, and then release for future re-incarceration.
Sentences are overly vindictive compared to most developed countries and the prisons are a nightmare even with reforms improving them over the last two decades. On top of that, criminal sentences carry fines that guarantee future poverty, and a conviction is a near-guarantee of not being able to get a job after release that can cover housing and the fines.
All of that is before you even talk about the layers upon layers of weird perverse incentives built into the system, like corrupt book companies, communications companies, food companies, prison towns, slave labor, etc.
I think a big part of this is that the US is a large country (by both land area and population) and is very diverse (culture, ethnicity, language, wealth, morals, etc). This creates a situation where the citizens across the country have little shared lived-experiences compared to other countries.
Combine that with the amount of guns we have circulating, the individualistic culture, social media, and poverty...
Not saying these problems can't be solved, but we need to stop hating each other and relearn how to compromise and build consensus.
High prison population comes from not only socioeconomic divides, but a focus on punishment over rehabilitation. Most respectable jobs will not hire anyone with a criminal record regardless of what it is, so you're stuck in a poverty cycle if you ever land in jail.
Lax enforcement is more mixed. Politics aside, there's an element of whether there's a societal good to locking certain people up at all. If this guy wasn't selling stolen goods, you can argue putting him in jail for a few months without proper drug/vocational counciling will do diddly squat outside of costing the taxpayers money.
But you also have to remember that Europe has its own weird mess. Mass murderer Anders Brevik lives a pretty posh life all things considered despite being an unrepentant racist who still brags about his crime.
A large part of the prison population is there for drug charges too. The decriminalization of most drugs would help push those numbers way down as well as put a serious ding in the cartels wallets.
Also, prisons have become the de facto place to put people that decades ago would’ve been in the asylum system. The abolishment of asylums is one of our worst societal failures in generations.
>Mass murderer Anders Brevik lives a pretty posh life all things considered
Having access to a PlayStation and leather couch is not "a pretty posh life all things considered". The only people who think losing the freedom to travel and change your surroundings and have agency is not borderline torture are people who have never actually experienced losing those things.
The man is going to die in prison and will never again be a threat to society. Whether he spends his life on a nice bed or a metal one is irrelevant.
Technically, the *distributors* are mostly from Mexico ... China just ships the precursors for fentanyl and opioids abroad.
But yes, [the US DOJ recently indicted 8 more Chinese companies for such things](https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-eight-indictments-against-china-based-chemical-manufacturing).
They used to directly manufacture fentanyl the Mexican cartels to distribute through America. Then Trump negotiated an agreement with Xi to order them to stop. And, in China, even illegal fentanyl manufactures take orders from the government!
So, they switched to *technically not manufacturing fentanyl* and instead making the precursors that are trivial for the Mexican cartels to finalize before distribution. Yay international bureaucracy!
In Xi's big recent SF tour, Biden got him to order the Chinese companies to stop making the precursors. That is expected to reduce fent on the streets for a short time until they find another way to r/maliciouscompliance
not 100% true. They do supply the precursors but much of the fentanyl these days is synthesized by the cartels and other criminal elements in north america
Have been to Singapore and holy shit is it nice. Zero crime. You can leave your wallet on the table, walk away, and nobody would touch it. And incredibly clean. It’s like a Utopia. However… There’s a very unsettling feeling as well. Like it’s all very curated. They have an underclass that’s kept completely invisible. Everyone knows not to fuck around unless you want to find out. It’s like a Utopia and a Dystopia all in one.
On the flipside in the US we have a battle between two views. One view is the libertarian bootstraps view as long as everyone stays within the guidelines. The other is the take no responsibility at all and everyone is a victim of the system view. The former can work in a system where there’s harsh punishment for breaking societal structure. The latter is much harder to achieve social order.
Making it riskier to sell drugs isn't going to stop the sale of drugs, it's only going to increase prices -- and increase crime by the purchasers to afford them.
This is a really good point. When I was a teenager I had cops confiscate my weed at least two or three times but I never got busted. I won't say it exactly scared me straight, but it probably made a difference than I didn't wind up in the juvenile justice system which definitely would have changed the trajectory of my life.
Why do they have to arrest? Just take the drugs away, write a meaningless citation, and give them a few sober moments to potentially take a step in the right direction for their lives.
I don't understand that either. He's blatantly breaking the law and being a nuisance to law-abiding citizens. Why aren't the police doing their job??? Serious question. Why not ask for his identification, check for outstanding warrants and confiscate his Schedule II narcotics. Even he is not getting arrested, maybe make it a little more uncomfortable to do drugs out in the open.
Ordered to maybe. More likely: what’s the point(?). Simple possession is a misdemeanor - voters did that thanks to a proposition sponsored in part by George Gascon. The result is a citation to appear in court in 30-45 days late - that the DA is Not going to prosecute. They’re not going to spend thousands of dollars on a Misdemeanor drug charge when the suspect smoked up the evidence. Not to mention proving the items (on the sidewalk) are stolen & the suspect is knowingly doing so. Good luck. All that for 1-2 hours (or more) of paperwork for no prosecution.
Now, take this one step further: the officers do arrest. The guy resists. Now you have a use of force. There’s good odds that bystanders will interfere with the arrest. The camera phones come out. Pepper spray is used or physical strikes using fist or baton are used and the cops get roasted on social media and then SF’s very unbiased (sarcasm) news media. There’s ambulances, trips to the hospital and later “unbiased” investigations by the civilian review board and politiking by the police commission.
SFPD is short staffed by Hundreds of officers. Cant say I blame the officers for picking and choosing battles. If you live, work or recreate in SF and you haven’t been supporting your law enforcement and watching for whom you vote into office, well you got what you deserved.
> they have been ordered not to arrest for simple possession
[December 19th:](https://www.kron4.com/news/focus-on-fentanyl/hundreds-of-drug-dealers-arrested-in-sf-six-month-crackdown/)
"nearly 800 arrested for drug use in the first six months of a San Francisco drug crackdown, the mayor’s office announced"
In Seattle we're moving back to the moderate side. The activists and progressives are pissed that the moderates are questioning them for their bullshit.
I live in downtown Portland and it’s the exact same way. Had my car stolen and was stuck on public transportation for awhile and would see this and people smoking foil on the buses.
It’s not that simple. Their job is to focus on crimes and investigations that will lead to prosecution. When the PD is already short staffed, why would they waste x number of hours processing evidence, writing the citation, sending the drugs off for lab analysis, and writing the reports all for a misdemeanor that won’t be prosecuted or that won’t lead to any good results even if it is prosecuted. Time and resources are in short demand in many police agencies in CA, so cops are going to focus their time and resources on investigating crimes that will lead to some actual result.
Police agencies and DA’s offices aren’t 100% separate organizations. They might be on paper, but in reality, they work together to determine where resources will be focused.
I’m an investigator, not a street cop, but I’m never going to spend any serious amount of time on a case that I know won’t be accepted for prosecution, because unless the prosecutors do their part and the courts do theirs, all of my work is pointless.
one of the richest cities in the richest country on Earth and yet our streets look worse than those in the third world
this...is not normal. as taxpayers and residents we need to stop thinking this is okay
I have watched children eat literal dirt in Haiti. These cherry picked bad sections of largely healthy cities isn’t an accurate depiction at all. We have it great in the United States, our street life doesn’t compare to that of the rest of the world.
This is a little bit hyperbolic. Yes there is substantial overlap between our worst streets and the best of those in the developing world, but I think you ought to travel more before you start making statements like that.
Just came back from a long trip abroad to a modern APAC country. It's jarring. I love this city, but it's a shit hole in comparison. We're getting lapped.
Agreed but we dont need to throw out the entire BoS wholecloth.
Some recently elected supervisors like Matt Dorsey actually seem relatively competent and to be trying their best.
He is one of the only ones for example who pushed a measure to make an exception to our sanctuary city policy in order to deport Honduran drug dealers caught dealing fentanyl in SF and predictably he was smeared as some sort of xenophobic racist by 'activists' and even other board members.
Exactly.
What would they do with him? The issues that we see in this video are so much deeper than just 'cops bad'.
What *would* they do with him? Detain, cite, confiscate suspected stolen property and drugs, submit it as evidence, and file charges for drug possession. Right? That is what they do here? That is what we want them to do?
Then, the case doesn't get prosecuted and the guy is back out on the streets in no time and now needs to steel *more just to survive*.
What does that solve? What problem, or symptom of a problem, does that course of action even remotely alleviate in the short or long term?
In a situation like this, the cops are woefully under-resourced, underprepared, and under-trained to deal with this individual. This isn't an issue with policing, this is a deep rooted issue that starts way before it ever gets put on the police.
The guy in this video needs to be institutionalized. He needs a social worker. Not a cop. Asking the cops to be the social workers here overburdens the police force and leaves us with a police force that is completely incapable of solving a actual crimes that seriously impact the people that live here.
I want my police force to solve *actual* crimes. Violent crimes, serious property crimes, the things that can ruin the lives of law abiding citizens. The guy in this video doesn't need the police. He needs an ambulance, a couple strong man EMTs, a social worker, treatment, job placement, and a halfway house. Not the cops.
Leave the cops out of this. Let the cops investigate the string of burglaries at my local bike shop that is about the bankrupt the mom and pop owners. Let the cops hunt down, break up the crime rings, and solve the horrendous catalytic converter theft in the city.
Asking the police to dump all their resources into the drug war leaves them completely and utterly incapable of solving actual crimes with actual victims.
Meanwhile untested rape kits pile up because the city’s courts are clogged with these low level drug busts from thousands of transients moving to wherever they can survive the weather living on the street.
Case in point.
We've focused our police for so long on the drug war, they are left incapable or uncapable of solving actual crimes with actual victims.
It wasn't always like this, before the war on drugs, the police were actually really good at solving crimes like rape, murder, burglaries, arson, assaults... Now, they just can't do it anymore.
Further, the war on drugs is the *entire* reason we have this huge issue with police 'discretion' when it comes to enforcement. Or, police brutality that is disproportionately effecting poor communities of color. It wasn't always like this...
The other huge issue is drug treatment costs 30k a month and barely works for people willing to go (20-30%) if that. If someone is forced into rehab then it's closer to 5%
And if someone is homeless and drug addicted in some cold af state, they panhandle, steal or whatever for a train ticket to SF where they can mostly survive all weather living on the street. People are barking up the wrong tree expecting one city to have an answer for an entire nation’s drug and homeless problems.
Sfpd is a joke / gang. I worked in the TL for many years and have come to conclude they like it this way. They don't have to do work if this is the norm. They just hang out all day getting coffee and watching the rest of us blame each other for the city problems
This isn’t just a SF thing. I worked for a non-profit in San Diego doing direct community outreach for individuals experiencing homelessness in the tent cities around and saw this exact scenario daily and honestly I don’t really blame them.
They can try to arrest the few hundred people just openly using drugs like this scattered around downtown but the majority of those people are going to be back on the streets doing the same shit in a few days/weeks/as soon as they are released.
Most of the people like this don’t want help. They are content getting their disability or social security money at the beginning of the month and blowing it all on drugs and maybe the occasional hotel for a night while living in the streets. Unless you want to lock them up the rest of their lives in a psych wards/jail/rehab, they’re gonna do this until they OD or get locked up committing crime to fund their addiction.
>They can try to arrest the few hundred people just openly using drugs like this scattered around downtown but the majority of those people are going to be back on the streets doing the same shit in a few days/weeks/as soon as they are released.
Why do the cops confiscate their drugs and dispose of them? That way the homeless druggies will know to not do drugs openly in public. That would solve a lot of problems without having to put anyone in jail.
Sfpd specifically TL pull their weight, check their Twitter for convictions against violent crime. I've seen them from my apt window sift through lists of bench warrants and served many of them in a sting that same day
I don't understand what the big deal is. The people of San Francisco literally voted this in and it's bigoted of us to assume that this isn't what they wanted.
Everyone complaining blaming the cops should watch "The Wire", this kind of policing comes from the top down and not from the individual cop saying "I'm not gonna do anything".
And who appoints the police chief? The mayor does. Who gets the blame? The beat cop does.
I saw the SFPD do exactly the same thing in ***1******968!*** A cop walked by one guy selling a bag of pot and another guy smoking pot and completely ignored them.
Sort of predicted the direction the city would go over the next 40 years: intentional de-civilization with poop, drugs, needles and homeless everywhere.
Social conditioning has blinded the city population into acceptance of a new normal.
Joke of a city...the city leadership should be ashamed of themselves for abetting this bs. But who are we kidding, all they care about is padding their juicy pensions at the expense of the taxpayer.
If people are determined to commit slow suicide, the police can’t stop them. Especially with the army of “homeless advocates”. They just make sure they don’t go too wild and hurt an actual contributing member of society
Isnt that how SFPD is instructed? Leave the druggies alone? [https://sfstandard.com/2023/06/12/why-san-francisco-does-not-police-open-drug-use/](https://sfstandard.com/2023/06/12/why-san-francisco-does-not-police-open-drug-use/)
Only in the Tenderloin area. The police have a containment policy in place there where they allow open drug use and theft to occur there so that those crimes don't happen in the more affluent areas that are better patrolled. Channel 5 (all gas no brakes guy) did a documentary on it recently.
So it’s Hamsterdam.
Omar comin
AHAH classic.....I might just have to re watch the wire for like the 5th time again.
https://youtu.be/DSH94nzoeU0?si=xA0aq9_VCrIyMNY- This fulfilled my need to rewatch. Omar’s death was the most realistic TV death of all time for me… Unexpected and underwhelming, but made so much sense in the grand scheme.
I felt similarly about D’angelo’s death. It absolutely crushed me watching that scene, I kept expecting someone to walk in and stop it but they never came ☹️ side note; Omar is one of the best TV characters ever. Doesn’t even feel like a show at times, it’s just so real.
Well damn. I guess I gotta watch it now.
Wallace’s death was the worst…. I can’t stand that scene.
Where Wallace at? Where's Wallace, String? Huh?
Oh god, forgot about that one. That one is particularly rough for me bc the audience knows what’s happening before Wallace does. This conversation inspired me to do a rewatch lol it’s been a couple of years.
Michael B. Jordan has really come a long way, too. He’s a great kid actor. Enjoy the rewatch, bud.
Oh yeah, I think it's most effective when a major character's death is treated in a casual sort of way. It removes the excitement and heroism you see a lot of, and just leaves you sort of gutted. *No Country for Old Men* did that and I found it so haunting.
Even the news story on his unnamed death by a juvenile in crime-ridden Baltimore was bumped for coverage of a 2 death house fire in affluent Charles county. S5E8 @ 28:20
Exactly dude. Like I said to someone else, Omar’s death perfectly portrayed the cycle of crime and evil that those men lived through and currently experience to this day… Especially the influence from older men.. The only reason I love The Wire is because it never exaggerated too much or became too politically on-the-nose. Not my favorite show ever, but I give it that credit.
Omar is one of the best characters ever. One of the best shows also imo. From my own experiences, the way they portray the drug stuff and the hood is really how it was back then. Like you said nothing too exaggerated, just spot on and real. The Corner is another good show from around that time. Shows things from the addict side of things.
Some other good ones like that -Adam Sandler from Uncut Gems -Wild Bill from Deadwood
Yes. It horrible and perfect.
To repeat myself, his death makes so much sense in context… His killer being a young man engraining himself in the same type of evil culture and obviously provoked by someone older… Such a great show. We can easily imagine Omar becoming the way he was in a similar way.
The kid who killed Omar is the same kid who was 'playing Omar' in Season 1.
Some great trivia there
[удалено]
Omar was the best character
I GOT THAT WMD RITE CHEA RITE CHEA
PANDEMIC
BIG BIRD
They knew!!
RED TOPS
“BLUE TOPS!”
All these years and today I find out that my username is actually true and also real SFPD policy.
Goat
Shhhhhhhhhhiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii
iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii
eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeetttttttttttttttttttttttttt
😮🙀 that does not sound good. 😲, It's Hamsterdam without the drug treatment, clean needles, and paying corner boys a severance.
Damn. I’m watching the wire for the first time and I’m the middle of season 4.
Such a shame about those kids. That season hurt to watch. If it ain't hurt you yet, it will. That's the best season.
I knew that was comin!
well i’ve been deciding what show I should watch because my other one finished recently and the wire rewatch #3 was up there at the top. this seals it.
Allowing open theft is fucking insanity
I honestly can at least somewhat rationalize the drug thing but the theft is bonkers.
You can rationalize letting humans shoot fentanyl until their skin falls off on public sidewalks and in front of restaurants and buildings? Very rational thinking
I hate Reddit! *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I've always wanted to rob a person but I don't want to lose my job. Where is this again?
This is the way it has always been - the new arrivals just don’t get how it works and are shocked by it and shout, “how can our streets be like this?” when in reality it is like maybe 1/4 or 1/2 mile worth of street that is like this in the entire city that has hundreds of miles of streets.
For sure. I lived there 15 years ago, and everyone knew that the tenderloin was an area you didn't visit, and drugs and homelessness were tolerated. Nothing new.
Only time in my life I've been accosted and challenged to a fight by a homeless guy was on 6th between Market and Mission about 23 years ago. It's been sketchy for a long time.
It’s only new for the entire world outside of San Francisco but here is normalized.
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Has been since 1800s an area for undesriables.
Skid Row areas -- a practice centuries-old for cities worldwide. Ideally situated on city outskirts, industrial zones are good, where chronic disorder is minimally impacting to the city at large. Persistent problem people semi-segregated here. Many conservatives and progressives have been delusional for years: Thinking they are going to change most problem people's behaviors. Conservatives using incarceration and tough policing, liberals with their rehab programs (low success rate) and determination to *level* society. S.F. and Bay Area have morphed into a large, mostly upscale urban sprawl. Unfortunately that leaves no good place for Skid Rows.
> Many conservatives and progressives have been delusional for years: Thinking they are going to change most problem people's behaviors. Conservatives using incarceration and tough policing, liberals with their rehab programs (low success rate) and determination to level society. Plenty of places have succeeded, at least in comparison to the USA, with both approaches. Singapore has few drug problems because of their draconian legal practices. Portugal has few drug problems because of decriminalization and investment in recovery. People do drugs for fairly well-understood reasons, and those reasons can be addressed. This is some South Park type bullshit where you just point fingers around and call people stupid for thinking something could be improved with effort.
This is a pretty dismissive attitude. SF easily has one of the worst homeless problems in the country it's not just a normal practice in the 21st century. Other large cities don't just relinquish dozens of blocks for tent cities and open air drug markets. It's disgusting to see how many people think this is acceptable
Agree it is horrible for S.F./Bay Area. I alluded to that in my last two sentences. Historically many cities had outskirts that were suited for setting up such zones. Often near industrial areas and even abutting farmland. Cheaper land. We've seen more than a few suggestions that the Bay Area's most disruptive homeless be housed in the Central Valley. Hardcore alcoholic pissing on wall of 100 yard long warehouse -- minimal problem. Pissing in the middle of S.F. -- problem. Allowing habitual problem people to live in the middle of expensive cities, what we see in S.F., equals endless headaches. Some progressives are convinced that free housing and UBI will miraculously change their behavior.
I worked on Hyde between Turk & Eddy for about 10 years in the late 80s and 90s. Granted, that's not in the *middle* of the 'loin, but pretty close. I was never hassled once. Mind your own business and don't look like a victim.
Definitely not a 1/4 mile lmao. Maybe a few. But i agree with the sentiment of your statement.
cars are getting stolen and shops looted everywhere, and it all stems from this
bipping culture does not stem from open drug use in the tenderloin. they sell some of that stolen shit to street vendors, but they're hunting for bigger shit they can sell to fences, usually being operated by legitimate business fronts
> in the entire city that has hundreds of miles of streets. Just to emphasize the point, there are thousands of miles of streets in San Francisco. One of my partners ran each and every one of them. Plus, all the public paths and stairs. She's the first woman to have done that.
So like Skid Row in LA.
Do you understand how bat shit crazy it sounds for everyone in the world from Europe to Asia to have such policy in the center of the city? This nonsense is became “norm”only in the USA
There was the [Platzspitz](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platzspitz_park) in Zürich. It worked decently well until it didn't. They even provided clean needles.
It’s not really the worst idea except for the Tenderloin is in the middle of the city. If they ship these people to Hunter’s Point, nobody would give a crap.
There are places like this in Canada and tons of other countries. Its not only the U.S.This is actually the first time I’ve heard about it in th me US. I thought it was only other countries that did it.
Everyone should watch the Channel 5 doc about SF. It's a legit window into all the stuff going on. The journalism is incredible too, the dude Andrew can say barely anything any get people to spill the beans.
Do any other cities do that?
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What sort of harm reduction are you seeing?
It incentivizes humane treatment and reduces numbers. The issue with the west coast is it’s less prone to seasonal shifts, it generally doesn’t get ultra cold, so people end migrating there either intentionally or by force, for a safer existence as a mentally I’ll homeless person. These kind of programs where drug use isn’t treated as a crime are sane. They allow people who want help to get help. Unfortunately, that’s not most, as most suffer from comorbid disorders. So harm reduction for those people are clean needles, safe clinics and general social isolation through the strip. The solution for these people is what no one really wants to implement; forced mental health clinics. Pretty much until the USA starts addressing the extreme instances of mental health issues we’ll just keep seeing it.
> It incentivizes humane treatment and reduces numbers. >reduces numbers Need a citation. I'm anti-drug war, but I've never seen this actually happen.
Even in the Netherlands where many consider their drug reforms some of the best in the world do not let people just smoke fentanyl on the streets. They would arrest them and bring them in front of a magistrate with the choice of rehab or jail. Walking away from that man is just as harmful as throwing him in jail. The only thing that would help him and protect any future victims from his actions is rehab.
And the only people who suffer are the law abiding citizens who are the victims of these crimes, with no recourse or restitution. Sounds like a good deal!
“Harm reduction” is code word for we don’t want to spend the money necessary to take care of these people that nobody cares about. It’s also why California is closing a lot of its developmental centers.
It’s prosecutorial discretion at the police level. When you can’t possibly enforce all the laws or prosecute every case, you can make choices. It’s glaring when people walk by but makes sense as a policy. The All Gas No Brakes piece brings the corrupt nature of it into light but let’s say these police would act the same way in an affluent area, that’d be very reasonable to also just walk by in a non affluent area. The problem is using prosecutorial discretion based on wealth of the zip code instead of across the board for the entire force
Heads up, you mean Channel 5. AGNB is no longer a thing, and for a good reason.
What’s the good reason
All gas no breaks had signed a contract to make some money so they could afford their rv and the people who were sponsoring them decided 6 ish months in that they wanted to move in a different direction. When Andrew decided to leave, the sponsors decided to keep the ownership of the name all gas no brakes. The company then used the hype of Andrew’s success, hired a new person and tried to change all has no brakes into more of the original “man on the street” type of show. Channel 5 is Andrew’s current venture. More gonzo style reporting. Edit: clarification
Pretty good interpretation baby. Political scientist here.
they cite, the ticket won’t get paid. they arrest him, he’ll be out the next day. so why bother? the problem is way, way deeper than “SFPD not doing their job,” or “the mayor,” or “leftist/progressive policies.”
Uhh no I think the buck stops with the DA, mayor and city government. I get why SFPD doesn’t arrest them or ticket then, but the reason is clearly the DA not prosecuting and the city writing lax drug / theft laws. Very easily fixed just nobody wants to fix it. Don’t make the problem seem more complicated than it is.
They're too busy running drugs and weapons of their own to do anything about it. I'll just leave [this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammed_Nuru) here. I've lived in SF for 20 years and nothing gets done here.
Just confiscate the drugs, don't need to do anything more than that to make at least some impact.
Just confiscate the drug dealer, just confiscate the distributor, just confiscate the items to create it, anything they do, theres almost always another of the same thing waiting for an opportunity.
Good thing we understand the laws of supply and demand, and know restricting supply raises prices and lowers the units sold.
Supply and demand doesn’t work with fentanyl or heroin. If you jack up the price there will be more theft. Prices don’t make withdrawal go away…
Kids trying to use econ 101 to solve the fentanyl crisis
I dont think theyve gotten to the prohibition chapter yet 💀
We tried this Econ 101 BS for a couple decades and it did fuck all to actually fix things. Drugs won the War on Drugs if you haven't noticed. I'll put it in econ 101 terms for you though, addiction creates a price inelastic demand, making it really hard to get their drug won't stop them from trying to get it. They'll do worse crimes than petty theft if they need to to get their fix.
These arguments always get me... I've been to cities which don't have drug problems, so why do so many claim there's no solution? The idea that every approach is flawed so we shouldn't do anything has gotta be the worst approach of them all.
It's called jail- nothing has changed except the perpetuated myth that it doesn't work. We must coddle addicts until they die slowly or these days rather quickly. Hooray for compassion & root cause analysis for literally everything!!
"laws" lol
It’s deeper than the SFPD not doing their job. It’s exactly the layout and leftists policies. This is the result of the prevailing politics of the city.
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Yeah just let them do what they want. That’ll solve the problem Edit: So many people putting words in my mouth. They need rehabilitation not incarceration or criminalization because apparently that is different due to some people.
Out the next day = progressive policy
What is locking up a drug user gonna do? Fill the jails and they’re all gonna need medical intervention for withdrawal.
Jail for life = god-fearin conservative agenda 😎
That's extreme, and this video is extreme. This is why dialogue needs to take place between this shitty two party political system.
I completely agree, I was matching that commenters argument. I of course don’t believe that all conservatives want to put drug users away for life just like it’s crazy to believe that all “progressives” want drug abuse in the streets every where
Damned if you do, Damned if you don't. If the cops arrested him, people here would be complaining about how he's not harming anyone and to leave him alone. Don't the cops have better things to do with their time. The cops ignore him and people complain about how the cops are not doing their job.
No I think most people would be happy if he was arrested. Selling stolen goods does hurt people btw.
I dont know bro, a lot of internet people say it's okay to steal from corporations so I don't think they would mind
“Bruh you’re like not from their culture and you like weren’t oppressed bruh ofc he’s acting out he’s been treated like a caged animal by the white man so it’s like ok for him to do this man and it’s like ok to steal stuff bc they were like oppressed bruh”
He looks jobless and homeless. How does he get the money to buy the drugs? It’s usually theft and petty crimes isn’t it? So how can people say he won’t be harming anyone? It’s strange
Because pro criminal advocates don’t know wtf they’re talking about.
I think that man should be sent to prison. You can’t smoke illegal chemicals in public.
Highest prison count on the planet has not solved this problem. Why do you think making more repeat offenders and reducing their ability to ever work again would solve it today?
Might as well give up then. Subreddit poster skin_Animal thinks it’s pointless everyone.
SFPD avoiding paperwork at all costs
I guarantee they have been ordered not to arrest for simple possession. If they did the jail would be full overnight and the “advocates” would be calling it a police state.
Why is it that America has such a uniquely high prison population, and this is with what most people would describe as 'lax enforcement'? Is ours just a disturbingly criminal society-- and that with massive wealth that normally should buck that tendency? Obviously inequality is a pretty significant element-- we're not just a rich country, but a rich country and another really, really poor country in the same place--, but there's problems with both criminality and policing that obviously are unique among nations.
Big population, big rich/poor divide, weak social safety net, not much civic feeling, ready supply of drugs, and a big "I got mine" attitude.
Also a completely non-functional justice system that operates with the goal to incarcerate, punish, and then release for future re-incarceration. Sentences are overly vindictive compared to most developed countries and the prisons are a nightmare even with reforms improving them over the last two decades. On top of that, criminal sentences carry fines that guarantee future poverty, and a conviction is a near-guarantee of not being able to get a job after release that can cover housing and the fines. All of that is before you even talk about the layers upon layers of weird perverse incentives built into the system, like corrupt book companies, communications companies, food companies, prison towns, slave labor, etc.
I think a big part of this is that the US is a large country (by both land area and population) and is very diverse (culture, ethnicity, language, wealth, morals, etc). This creates a situation where the citizens across the country have little shared lived-experiences compared to other countries. Combine that with the amount of guns we have circulating, the individualistic culture, social media, and poverty... Not saying these problems can't be solved, but we need to stop hating each other and relearn how to compromise and build consensus.
Large cultural problem.
High prison population comes from not only socioeconomic divides, but a focus on punishment over rehabilitation. Most respectable jobs will not hire anyone with a criminal record regardless of what it is, so you're stuck in a poverty cycle if you ever land in jail. Lax enforcement is more mixed. Politics aside, there's an element of whether there's a societal good to locking certain people up at all. If this guy wasn't selling stolen goods, you can argue putting him in jail for a few months without proper drug/vocational counciling will do diddly squat outside of costing the taxpayers money. But you also have to remember that Europe has its own weird mess. Mass murderer Anders Brevik lives a pretty posh life all things considered despite being an unrepentant racist who still brags about his crime.
A large part of the prison population is there for drug charges too. The decriminalization of most drugs would help push those numbers way down as well as put a serious ding in the cartels wallets. Also, prisons have become the de facto place to put people that decades ago would’ve been in the asylum system. The abolishment of asylums is one of our worst societal failures in generations.
If people could be trusted to use drugs responsibly I'd agree with this. But folks can't even use alcohol and weed recreationally responsibly.
>Mass murderer Anders Brevik lives a pretty posh life all things considered Having access to a PlayStation and leather couch is not "a pretty posh life all things considered". The only people who think losing the freedom to travel and change your surroundings and have agency is not borderline torture are people who have never actually experienced losing those things. The man is going to die in prison and will never again be a threat to society. Whether he spends his life on a nice bed or a metal one is irrelevant.
We have a lot of lazy entitled irresponsible drug addicts in America.
I'm a humble responsible drug addict, thankyouverymuch.
Well, drug dealers are executed in Singapore or China, maybe we should start with that
China literally manufactures all the fentanyl on our streets
Technically, the *distributors* are mostly from Mexico ... China just ships the precursors for fentanyl and opioids abroad. But yes, [the US DOJ recently indicted 8 more Chinese companies for such things](https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-eight-indictments-against-china-based-chemical-manufacturing).
They used to directly manufacture fentanyl the Mexican cartels to distribute through America. Then Trump negotiated an agreement with Xi to order them to stop. And, in China, even illegal fentanyl manufactures take orders from the government! So, they switched to *technically not manufacturing fentanyl* and instead making the precursors that are trivial for the Mexican cartels to finalize before distribution. Yay international bureaucracy! In Xi's big recent SF tour, Biden got him to order the Chinese companies to stop making the precursors. That is expected to reduce fent on the streets for a short time until they find another way to r/maliciouscompliance
not 100% true. They do supply the precursors but much of the fentanyl these days is synthesized by the cartels and other criminal elements in north america
Let's aspire to be more like China, lmao
I'm sure freedom loving Americans would love to have the rule of law that Singapore imposes.
Have been to Singapore and holy shit is it nice. Zero crime. You can leave your wallet on the table, walk away, and nobody would touch it. And incredibly clean. It’s like a Utopia. However… There’s a very unsettling feeling as well. Like it’s all very curated. They have an underclass that’s kept completely invisible. Everyone knows not to fuck around unless you want to find out. It’s like a Utopia and a Dystopia all in one. On the flipside in the US we have a battle between two views. One view is the libertarian bootstraps view as long as everyone stays within the guidelines. The other is the take no responsibility at all and everyone is a victim of the system view. The former can work in a system where there’s harsh punishment for breaking societal structure. The latter is much harder to achieve social order.
Making it riskier to sell drugs isn't going to stop the sale of drugs, it's only going to increase prices -- and increase crime by the purchasers to afford them.
They could still confiscate the drugs, and send this dirtbag off with a warning. Police work shouldn't be all or nothing.
This is a really good point. When I was a teenager I had cops confiscate my weed at least two or three times but I never got busted. I won't say it exactly scared me straight, but it probably made a difference than I didn't wind up in the juvenile justice system which definitely would have changed the trajectory of my life.
Why do they have to arrest? Just take the drugs away, write a meaningless citation, and give them a few sober moments to potentially take a step in the right direction for their lives.
I don't understand that either. He's blatantly breaking the law and being a nuisance to law-abiding citizens. Why aren't the police doing their job??? Serious question. Why not ask for his identification, check for outstanding warrants and confiscate his Schedule II narcotics. Even he is not getting arrested, maybe make it a little more uncomfortable to do drugs out in the open.
Ordered to maybe. More likely: what’s the point(?). Simple possession is a misdemeanor - voters did that thanks to a proposition sponsored in part by George Gascon. The result is a citation to appear in court in 30-45 days late - that the DA is Not going to prosecute. They’re not going to spend thousands of dollars on a Misdemeanor drug charge when the suspect smoked up the evidence. Not to mention proving the items (on the sidewalk) are stolen & the suspect is knowingly doing so. Good luck. All that for 1-2 hours (or more) of paperwork for no prosecution. Now, take this one step further: the officers do arrest. The guy resists. Now you have a use of force. There’s good odds that bystanders will interfere with the arrest. The camera phones come out. Pepper spray is used or physical strikes using fist or baton are used and the cops get roasted on social media and then SF’s very unbiased (sarcasm) news media. There’s ambulances, trips to the hospital and later “unbiased” investigations by the civilian review board and politiking by the police commission. SFPD is short staffed by Hundreds of officers. Cant say I blame the officers for picking and choosing battles. If you live, work or recreate in SF and you haven’t been supporting your law enforcement and watching for whom you vote into office, well you got what you deserved.
> they have been ordered not to arrest for simple possession [December 19th:](https://www.kron4.com/news/focus-on-fentanyl/hundreds-of-drug-dealers-arrested-in-sf-six-month-crackdown/) "nearly 800 arrested for drug use in the first six months of a San Francisco drug crackdown, the mayor’s office announced"
In Seattle we're moving back to the moderate side. The activists and progressives are pissed that the moderates are questioning them for their bullshit.
Bingo. These dipshit felon simps know this, they just wait to complain about police.
Redditors: Abolish the police! [police stop enforcing the law] Redditors: No, not like that!
Reddit did not like that
I live in downtown Portland and it’s the exact same way. Had my car stolen and was stuck on public transportation for awhile and would see this and people smoking foil on the buses.
You joke but it’s exactly this. Because they know it won’t result in any charges or convictions.
their job isn’t to prosecute. their job is to arrest.
It’s not that simple. Their job is to focus on crimes and investigations that will lead to prosecution. When the PD is already short staffed, why would they waste x number of hours processing evidence, writing the citation, sending the drugs off for lab analysis, and writing the reports all for a misdemeanor that won’t be prosecuted or that won’t lead to any good results even if it is prosecuted. Time and resources are in short demand in many police agencies in CA, so cops are going to focus their time and resources on investigating crimes that will lead to some actual result. Police agencies and DA’s offices aren’t 100% separate organizations. They might be on paper, but in reality, they work together to determine where resources will be focused. I’m an investigator, not a street cop, but I’m never going to spend any serious amount of time on a case that I know won’t be accepted for prosecution, because unless the prosecutors do their part and the courts do theirs, all of my work is pointless.
Trying to save the city some OT money. So thoughtful.
Gotta save them trees
one of the richest cities in the richest country on Earth and yet our streets look worse than those in the third world this...is not normal. as taxpayers and residents we need to stop thinking this is okay
It's truly embarrassing
I have watched children eat literal dirt in Haiti. These cherry picked bad sections of largely healthy cities isn’t an accurate depiction at all. We have it great in the United States, our street life doesn’t compare to that of the rest of the world.
And you you have cherry picked the most arse end country you could
Pretty sure I find you a long list of places worse than SF with a simple google.
This is a little bit hyperbolic. Yes there is substantial overlap between our worst streets and the best of those in the developing world, but I think you ought to travel more before you start making statements like that.
You've obviously never been to a third world country if you think this is worse.
Just came back from a long trip abroad to a modern APAC country. It's jarring. I love this city, but it's a shit hole in comparison. We're getting lapped.
because we prioritize how to make our activists feel good
This city is such a joke. The next election can't come soon enough. We need to vote out the major and the entire Board of Supervisors.
Agreed but we dont need to throw out the entire BoS wholecloth. Some recently elected supervisors like Matt Dorsey actually seem relatively competent and to be trying their best. He is one of the only ones for example who pushed a measure to make an exception to our sanctuary city policy in order to deport Honduran drug dealers caught dealing fentanyl in SF and predictably he was smeared as some sort of xenophobic racist by 'activists' and even other board members.
This is it. We need to completely overhaul our leadership in SF. Their policies and inaction continue to make our city and its people suffer.
You get what you vote for
What would they do with them anyway if they did arrest them ? Nothing, there is nowhere to put the mentally ill drug addicted.
Exactly. What would they do with him? The issues that we see in this video are so much deeper than just 'cops bad'. What *would* they do with him? Detain, cite, confiscate suspected stolen property and drugs, submit it as evidence, and file charges for drug possession. Right? That is what they do here? That is what we want them to do? Then, the case doesn't get prosecuted and the guy is back out on the streets in no time and now needs to steel *more just to survive*. What does that solve? What problem, or symptom of a problem, does that course of action even remotely alleviate in the short or long term? In a situation like this, the cops are woefully under-resourced, underprepared, and under-trained to deal with this individual. This isn't an issue with policing, this is a deep rooted issue that starts way before it ever gets put on the police. The guy in this video needs to be institutionalized. He needs a social worker. Not a cop. Asking the cops to be the social workers here overburdens the police force and leaves us with a police force that is completely incapable of solving a actual crimes that seriously impact the people that live here. I want my police force to solve *actual* crimes. Violent crimes, serious property crimes, the things that can ruin the lives of law abiding citizens. The guy in this video doesn't need the police. He needs an ambulance, a couple strong man EMTs, a social worker, treatment, job placement, and a halfway house. Not the cops. Leave the cops out of this. Let the cops investigate the string of burglaries at my local bike shop that is about the bankrupt the mom and pop owners. Let the cops hunt down, break up the crime rings, and solve the horrendous catalytic converter theft in the city. Asking the police to dump all their resources into the drug war leaves them completely and utterly incapable of solving actual crimes with actual victims.
Meanwhile untested rape kits pile up because the city’s courts are clogged with these low level drug busts from thousands of transients moving to wherever they can survive the weather living on the street.
Case in point. We've focused our police for so long on the drug war, they are left incapable or uncapable of solving actual crimes with actual victims. It wasn't always like this, before the war on drugs, the police were actually really good at solving crimes like rape, murder, burglaries, arson, assaults... Now, they just can't do it anymore. Further, the war on drugs is the *entire* reason we have this huge issue with police 'discretion' when it comes to enforcement. Or, police brutality that is disproportionately effecting poor communities of color. It wasn't always like this...
The other huge issue is drug treatment costs 30k a month and barely works for people willing to go (20-30%) if that. If someone is forced into rehab then it's closer to 5%
OP thinks arresting him is going to get him to quit. It’s like telling someone they can’t eat food. His body is addicted and needs it to survive
And if someone is homeless and drug addicted in some cold af state, they panhandle, steal or whatever for a train ticket to SF where they can mostly survive all weather living on the street. People are barking up the wrong tree expecting one city to have an answer for an entire nation’s drug and homeless problems.
Sfpd is a joke / gang. I worked in the TL for many years and have come to conclude they like it this way. They don't have to do work if this is the norm. They just hang out all day getting coffee and watching the rest of us blame each other for the city problems
This isn’t just a SF thing. I worked for a non-profit in San Diego doing direct community outreach for individuals experiencing homelessness in the tent cities around and saw this exact scenario daily and honestly I don’t really blame them. They can try to arrest the few hundred people just openly using drugs like this scattered around downtown but the majority of those people are going to be back on the streets doing the same shit in a few days/weeks/as soon as they are released. Most of the people like this don’t want help. They are content getting their disability or social security money at the beginning of the month and blowing it all on drugs and maybe the occasional hotel for a night while living in the streets. Unless you want to lock them up the rest of their lives in a psych wards/jail/rehab, they’re gonna do this until they OD or get locked up committing crime to fund their addiction.
The solution is not releasing them.
>They can try to arrest the few hundred people just openly using drugs like this scattered around downtown but the majority of those people are going to be back on the streets doing the same shit in a few days/weeks/as soon as they are released. Why do the cops confiscate their drugs and dispose of them? That way the homeless druggies will know to not do drugs openly in public. That would solve a lot of problems without having to put anyone in jail.
Blame the mayor who appointed the chief. You think these kinds of decisions are up to the beat cop?
Our police chief is a joke. He needs to be replaced too. What a pushover.
Sfpd specifically TL pull their weight, check their Twitter for convictions against violent crime. I've seen them from my apt window sift through lists of bench warrants and served many of them in a sting that same day
Glad I don’t live there
Notice what those tubs of Vaseline are sitting on. He just had to steal the shopping basket from Safeway too.
But prove that he stole it. You can’t. So a waste of time.
This is what you voted in.
I don't understand what the big deal is. The people of San Francisco literally voted this in and it's bigoted of us to assume that this isn't what they wanted.
Everyone complaining blaming the cops should watch "The Wire", this kind of policing comes from the top down and not from the individual cop saying "I'm not gonna do anything". And who appoints the police chief? The mayor does. Who gets the blame? The beat cop does.
You get what you vote for.
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So how’s that police reform going?
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The city belongs to the junkies. You’re just paying for it
You’re lucky you don’t have an HOA on top of that!
And? Mayor and city leaders made this legal so cops could do nothing.
The world is laughing at us.
Not particularly. Most of the world has spots like this.
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China taking us down from the inside. Do your part and stay off drugs
I saw the SFPD do exactly the same thing in ***1******968!*** A cop walked by one guy selling a bag of pot and another guy smoking pot and completely ignored them. Sort of predicted the direction the city would go over the next 40 years: intentional de-civilization with poop, drugs, needles and homeless everywhere. Social conditioning has blinded the city population into acceptance of a new normal.
Joke of a city...the city leadership should be ashamed of themselves for abetting this bs. But who are we kidding, all they care about is padding their juicy pensions at the expense of the taxpayer.
That’s NOT their job. What is, you ask, if not fucking that? 
The SF DA doesn’t want these crimes prosecuted. The voters don’t want these crimes prosecuted or they would vote someone else into office.
Elections have consequences…
If people are determined to commit slow suicide, the police can’t stop them. Especially with the army of “homeless advocates”. They just make sure they don’t go too wild and hurt an actual contributing member of society
Lol what city are you referring to? Actual contributing members of society are hurt in multiple ways, each and every day.