The San Francisco Citizen

You, a concerned citizen, can always check out CrimeMaps to see what your “neighborhood crime trend” is like in San Francisco. But some people don’t like this online tool, and for good reason.

Supervisor Tom Ammiano wonders why homicides don’t show up on the system. Interesting question. Well, the SFPD is working on it and they’ll have something to say about software and hardware updates tonight at a Police Commission meeting starting at 5:00 PM.

But wouldn’t it be nice to have access to an ”Incident Report & Analysis Tool” (it works, just give it a little time for the video to load) from UniversalMind or something? Click to enlarge:

You’ve seen the video, now it’s time to play with a demo yourself. What you’ll see is crime incident data, as you’d expect. The data is a little out of date, but this it’s just a demo.

In this orderly universe of mayhem you’ll see the expected constellations of crime, but also planetes asteres, wandering stars. Click on these dots to start playing.

It’s a live video feed from the Crown Vic of Officer Heinz! Hear him as he comes under automatic weapons fire and uses salty language. Oh no! Wonder what’s in his weapons cache? A .40 caliber Smith & Wesson, 9mm Luger, and .45 Colt. Natch.

(But wouldn’t he be better off trading in his PR-24 Nightstick for an enchanted Heavy Gnoll War Club or similar two-handed mace? And how much gold does he have?)

This future of live crime reporting will get here when it gets here, but fixing CrimeMaps should be something doable in 2008, dontcha think?

Here was the scene this morning during the A.M. drive - a cyclist getting ticketed by a motorcycle officer. Don’t know the details of this particular incident, but it wouldn’t be hard for you to find cyclists blowing stop signs or red lights at any intersection in San Francisco.

Individual officers sometimes get on a kick and issue tickets for the same type of infraction over and over all day. If you get cops acting together, as sometimes happens, then you’d call it an enforcement action. They could go after drivers who roll through stop signs, or pedestrians who jaywalk - you never know.

Harley Davidson of a bitch! Yet another ticket from a Dudley Perkins-motosickle-riding buckethead.

Some would like to see Page become the Page St. Bicycle Boulevard - this would allow cyclists to maintain speed. Traffic circles were tried before, but those things proved unpopular.

Leave us turn to Idaho for the answer - stop signs mean “stop” for drivers but mean “yield” for cyclists:

                                  TITLE  49
                                MOTOR VEHICLES
                                  CHAPTER 7
                           PEDESTRIANS AND BICYCLES
    49-720.  STOPPING — TURN AND STOP SIGNALS. (1) A person operating a
bicycle or human-powered vehicle approaching a stop sign shall slow down and,
if required for safety, stop before entering the intersection. 

What’s wrong with California having a similar law?

Let’s be careful out there.

Here’s the backstory about police foot patrols in San Francisco. It’s a touchy issue so things have been a bit hard on the captains who need to implement the program. And here’s the recent 208-page report from Public Safety Strategies Group. It documents “both the positive and negative outcomes of foot patrol implementation.” Now you’re up to speed.

Comes news today from San Francisco Chronicle Staff Writer Cecilia M. Vega - S.F. Supervisors Blast Police Web Letter:

San Francisco supervisors and police commissioners blasted Police Chief Heather Fong Wednesday for what they said was the premature posting of a letter on her department’s Web site that refuted the findings of a study criticizing the top brass’ implementation of a police foot-patrol program.

You’ll find a copy of the three-page letter here. Oops, maybe not, but that’s where the .pdf used to be, before it went down the memory hole. 

You can see a truncated HTML version here.

Or, click on to see the whole letter after the jump. Please remember that although Heather Fong took issue with data the consultants used to draw their conclusions, “on Wednesday she said she no longer had reservations about the methodology used and that she agreed with many of the findings in the report.” 

Fair enough. O.K., read on.

Foot patrols, like this but without the cars. Western Addition.

(more…)

This recent detention of a couple people who obviously had some kind of altercation in San Francisco’s U.N. Plaza attracted attention from hundreds of onlookers. Both detainees had blood visible on them. One of them took an argumentative approach (”yes, I have paraphanalia, but I don’t have any drugs on me”) while the other kept quiet.

What happened? Who was at fault for attempted robbery or whatever? Impossible to tell.

On it goes…

Or, improvised incendiary weapon, if you prefer.

Not much damage at all. Here’s a detail of the metal door. Click for a better view.

It looks like somebody’s paw prints got onto the door post-fire. Assuming that the video cameras were operational, investigators will have a pretty good idea of what occurred pretty soon.

Back on the Haight Ashbury beat:

Newly promoted Capt. Teresa Barrett is keeping in touch with those in the area served by the SFPD’s (Golden Gate) Park Station in Haight Ashbury. At yesterday’s meeting of the Haight Ashbury Neighborhood Council she covered a variety of issues, including traffic enforcement.

Is it possible to hand out 56 citations to motorists for failing to yield to pedestrians crossing the street in just four hours at one intersection? Apparently it is. Perhaps around Masonic and Grove.

Keep in touch with things in the hood by reading the newsletter. Be sure to check out the story of the guy who sold his Playstation through craigslist for counterfeit money. Let’s be careful out there.