San Francisco, Politics and Ricky Pearsall

San Francisco isn't a hub of homicide, but it is a magnet for crime

From Reader Andrew, in regards to 49ers first round pick Ricky Pearsall getting shot in the chest at Union Square, middle of the day, in a robbery attempt. He’s responding to the politicized group that’s poo-poohing San Francisco’s issues in the immediate aftermath of this scary incident:

Amazing to see this sentiment since the incident from some. These are the same people that immediately call for gun control anytime there’s a mass shooting and scream at the right when they say it’s not the time for politics. (And yes, obviously, people on the right who say not to bring in politics after a mass shooting now using this incident to immediately talk about failed leftist policies are hypocrites as well.)

Yep, pretty much. Without getting into policy specifics, I subscribe to the general belief that a) making guns more easily attainable increases the potential for shootings and b) being lenient with criminality increases the potential for more predatory crime. That’s not a statement on what our laws should specifically be or how the Constitution should be interpreted. I’m not sure anyone looks to me for those answers, nor should they.

What people do look to me for, if they look to me for anything at all, is to make obvious observations about reality. For example, I can say that the San Francisco of 2024 is more a hub of crime than the San Francisco of a decade ago. I know this because I’ve lived in the Bay Area over this time span and I am sentient. I know the difference between tent towns that spill out onto the sidewalk and unblocked streets. I perceive the dichotomy between scores of zombies doing the fentanyl lean and your run of the mill panhandlers.

The Pearsall shooting compelled local journalists to rush to SF’s defense and distribute stats on how 2024 is looking like a low homicide year.

Indeed, San Francisco’s homicides are down and thank God for that. SF is a low homicide rate city, which is good, but it would be difficult for it to be any other way.

Why? Because the median home price of this densely populated town is $1.2 million and very few young people live there (Only 7 percent of SF residents are males age 10-24).

Why do I bring up the dearth of young males? Because that’s how homicide tends to happen. Contrary to what we often see depicted on television, the motivations behind murder usually aren’t very interesting. Even a TV series like The Wire, dedicated to showing gritty urban reality, can give you a skewed perspective on how homicide typically goes because of its selection bias for “interesting.” The deaths on that show usually result from illicit business conflicts. In reality, murder happens less often as a result of compelling made for TV power struggles and more often because a young man totally loses his temper in the moment.

As author Jill Leovy has demonstrated in her works on American homicide, the crime is usually inspired by petty personal conflict. From her book:

The killings typically arise from arguments. A large share of them can be described in two words: Men fighting.

And what drives the fighting? From Leovy:

The smallest ghettoside spat seemed to escalate to violence, as if absent law, people were left with no other means of bringing a dispute to a close. Debts and competition over goods and women—especially women—drove many killings. 

The San Francisco version of intense male conflict is more like Reid Hoffman and Peter Thiel going after each other over differing ideological perspectives. The city just lacks that homicidal tinder of wayward young men drunkenly bumping into each other at a house party in a bad neighborhood. If a city is fairly rich, old, gay, and White/Asian, you’re just drawing from a lot of buckets that typically don’t produce high average rates. I’d also add that California’s strict gun control policies might be a factor, though some would counter that Oakland had a high homicide year in 2023. Overall, I just think it’s worth mentioning that our nation’s most populous state has a low overall murder rate, which you might not assume just based on driving around our cities.

And that’s sort of the point here. California, and by extension San Francisco, often seems like an unmanaged Wild West, even though murders are blessedly relatively infrequent. While it’s true that Pearsall’s near death isn’t representative as a common San Francisco experience, his getting robbed certainly is. From my article on baseball free agents avoiding the city:

Let’s zero in on that aspect of reality, specifically, since it’s one shared by everyone who might dare to park a car. You don’t have to be sympathetic to a guy who stores 500K in a vehicle to understand that everyone hates getting robbed and that it happens all the time in SF. Last month, it was reported that there have been over 15,000 car break-ins in San Francisco through 2023. The number of arrests for car break-ins? A grand total of 37.

Given those numbers, imagine blaming anyone or anything for the city’s newfound chaotic reputation other than its own governance? The city eliminated cash bail, and banned the use of facial recognition to catch criminals. Local judges appear fairly lenient on dealers and thieves. The point is that outcomes like “15,000 car break ins, 37 arrests” don’t happen arbitrarily. It’s not a natural disaster; It’s the result of choices.

Ricky Pearsall was shot by a 17 year-old suspect hailing from Tracy, CA, an exurb about an hour away. People with police department ties claim that the suspect is with the Norteno gang. I can’t confirm the suspect’s gang affiliation but it seems plausible given that he shot an innocent man in the chest. There are other rumors (floated by people who would seem to know something) that the shooter had previously been caught with a gun in Tracy and released.

I share these sketchy details to mostly make the point that San Francisco doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Much as suburb dwellers might want to live as though the city doesn’t exist and vice versa, the metro area is all one interconnected ecosystem. A failure of enforcement in Tracy, if it was a failure, can potentially impact SF.

The revelation of “Tracy” informed some of the local media, “Nothing to see here!” reaction. The issue ISN’T San Francisco, it’s this unwanted guest from dusty Tracy! Of course, it’s not that simple. Yes, had the suspect been a homeless illegal immigrant with many prior arrests, the incident would have more clearly represented criticisms of the city you hear from conservatives and others. At the same time, if SF hadn’t become such a theft hub over the last decade, people with criminal intentions would be more likely to stay away from its tourist areas.

To be fair to the city, there’s been more of top down emphasis, post Chesa Boudin, on cleaning up the area. For example, the burglar who looted Louis Vuitton actually got sent to prison. Mayor London Breed has taken a harder line against the homeless population. San Francisco still appears to be in a bad way, relative to the streets of a decade ago, but a full recovery would merely be a matter of will.

I am wholly against leaping to San Francisco’s defense in the way local media does, mostly because I believe that pressure yields better results. A person getting robbed in broad daylight at Union Square is unacceptable, football player or otherwise. I’m totally against downplaying what happened because it does speak to how predation now occurs in places it used not to. But I’m also, perhaps against my better judgment, cautiously optimistic. Hey, if Ricky Pearsall can miraculously be back at the 49ers weight room already, San Francisco can find a way to enforce the law. Here’s to hoping. Go Niners.