How safe do you feel in S.F.? In wake of high-profile crimes, here’s what people told us

Silicon Valley leaders and conservative commentators rushed to blame the April 3fatal stabbing of Cash App founder Bob Leeon homelessness and social disorder, assumptions swiftly overturned afterpolice arrested an acquaintance of Lee who works in tech.

The April 5beating of a former fire commissionertook a similarly dizzying turn: Initially described as an attack by a homeless man, it’s been recast, in court, as a possible act of self-defense provoked by the commissioner allegedly spraying the man with bear deterrent.

Taken together, the Lee slaying and the assault on the ex-commissioner fueled a more complicated debate — one that goes beyond crime to how it’s perceived and politicized, often manipulated by pundits eager to increase police budgets or take a harder line on street encampments.

A Controller’s Officesurvey of more than 2,500 respondentstook the pulse of a fractured city. It found that on balance, residents give the city a C+ grade on public safety, worse than the B they dispensed in 2019, though it could be shaped by social media sites like Nextdoor, where videos of car break-ins or shoplifting go viral and then pingpong into national news.

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Around town, people seem divided: the ones who fear that danger is lurking right around the corner, the ones who accept a certain degree of tumult as part of the urban landscape, and the ones who are less disturbed by crime itself than by what they see as the exploitation of fear by local politicians and online influencers.

Across geographic and demographic lines, residents who spoke with The Chronicle articulated a range of emotions, with some appearing nervous or agitated, and others resigned or even breezily optimistic.

Several vehemently defended their neighborhoods, insisting that fears of a crime wave are overblown and inflamed by news outlets and social media users who are either hyperfocused on what’s happening down the block or casting judgment from far away.

Here is what they had to say:

SoMa/Tenderloin

Angel Euceda wore a placid expression, smoking a cigarette in the doorway of a domestic violence shelter where he works. He slowly exhaled and raked his gaze over sidewalks crammed with boarded-up shops, yellow-vested ambassadors and people carrying possessions in garbage bags.

“Right now it’s mild,” Euceda said of the neighborhood where he grew up and built a career, a vibrant, turbulent nerve center that garnered a C grade in the city survey. Euceda said he is aware that people from “more expensive areas” are afraid to pass through, though he believes their concerns are misguided.

“他们从来没有been out here,” he surmised.

Farther downtown, near the glossy high-rises of the Financial District, merchants and passersby are more apprehensive. South of Market and the Financial District received C grades from residents, with scores of 2.9 and 2.8 respectively, lower than the median score for the city.

Raziye Mitchell runs a gyro stand across the street from the Transbay Terminal, where she often has to intervene in disturbances or try to calm people who behave erratically. A woman recently grabbed and threw a case of baklava, an episode that causes Mitchell to flinch each time she recounts it.

Another time, several months back, a man stood in the lot near her stand, swinging a metal bar,

“Right here,” Mitchell said, pointing from a picnic table where she sat on a bright afternoon, to a patch of asphalt yards away.

“I called 911,” she said, and smugly glanced at her watch. “I’m still waiting for that officer to arrive.”

Russian Hill/Nob Hill

Nook外喝着卡布奇诺的渣滓Cafe and Wine Bar on Hyde Street, Steve Yeadaker said he mostly felt safe and at ease — with reservations.

“Only because I took karate as a kid,” Yeadaker said, leaning forward as if divulging a secret. He said he doesn’t see much crime in Russian Hill, which earned a 3.1 out of 5 rating in the controller’s survey. Residents of Russian Hill indicated they feel slightly less safe than their counterparts in the Bayview and Hunters Point area, which drew a 3.2, despite its higher concentration of shootings and homicides.

Even if the sidewalks along Hyde Street are mostly peaceful, teeming with joggers, dog walkers and latte sippers on a sunny April afternoon, Yeadaker said he still monitors security cameras and makes sure to keep doors closed in the apartment building he manages.

Down the street at the Nourish Cafe, Zoee Astrachan and Andrew Dunbar, both of the Mission District, said they are more unsettled by out-of-town gawkers on social media than by any actual threat on the street.

“Social media — oh, absolutely it’s influenced people’s perceptions,” Astrachan said, looking up from her bowl of roasted vegetables.

“Overall this is a safe city,” Dunbar added, suggesting that the poverty and despair on downtown streets might create an “atmosphere of chaos” that people conflate with crime.

“I think people see homelessness and empty shops,” he said, “and they have this sense of spiraling forward into something unpredictable.”

Chinatown

Outside the Pang Kee Bargain Market on Stockton Street, Alan Lam loaded groceries onto display tables, mopping his forehead with a work glove. Lam said he’s afraid to go out at night these days, even though merchants and residents deem Chinatown a relatively safe neighborhood. It scored 3.3 out of 6 points in the controller’s survey, with a better-than-average B- grade.

Nonetheless, Lam observes signs of deterioration. The streets are less crowded, he said, pointing down the block, with its clear sightline to the Stockton Street Tunnel, which used to be hidden behind throngs of shoppers and pedestrians. Businesses are closing, he added.

Benny Lo, a Muni worker stopping for a break beneath the awning of Gourmet Delight B.B.Q., said he feels safe walking around Chinatown, and more anxious in downtown neighborhoods where discarded needles dot the sidewalks.

He immigrated to San Francisco from Hong Kong in 1993 and has the sense that street conditions “are always getting worse.” Such sentiments belie statistics from the FBI that show violent crime rates falling fairly consistently over the past 30 years. But Lo’s misgivings reflect a broader malaise that many residents share, fueled by San Francisco’s visible and well-documented struggles with property crime, homelessness and drug addiction.

Lam, who immigrated from Vietnam in the 1980s, also cited the renewed attention toviolence against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders over the past three years.He worries that Asian Americans are disproportionately targeted for robberies, perhaps because perpetrators “believe they carry cash.”

Eddy Phu, a worker in a Stockton Street phở shop who lives in Japantown, said that in general, he feels safe walking around.

“I’ve seen an attempt to steal food,” he said, “but nothing crazy.”

North Beach

Days aftera mass shooting near Broadway and Columbus Avenue, which police attributed to “a robbery gone bad,” residents of the neighborhood seemed unflappable. North Beach outperformed other neighborhoods in the city survey, earning a 3.7 rating and B grade — commensurate with Noe Valley and just below the 3.9 score for Presidio Heights.

“There’s a lot of us who don’t buy into the negativity,” said Patricia Dolan, who was strolling down Grant Avenue with fellow members of NextVillageSF, an organization that empowers seniors to live independently.

Dolan and others signaled that they would not allow a shooting to rattle them.

“It’s such a family neighborhood,” said Julie Bahret, who has lived in North Beach since 2005.

At the Caffe Greco on Columbus Avenue, owner Hanna Suleiman sat at a table with an empty espresso cup.

“The Broadway crowd — well, that’s always been an issue,” he said, referring to the shooting, which had not dimmed his perspective on public safety. If anything, Suleiman said he worried more about the effects of COVID, which habituated people to stay home and drained businesses of income. He had to shut down two cafes and a restaurant downtown after foot traffic dwindled.

A block away, Howard Frazier talked on a cell phone as he headed into Jackson Square, dressed head-to-toe in Giants paraphernalia.

Originally from the Bayview, Frazier said he considers San Francisco to be much safer than in past decades.

“I’ve seen it so much worse,” he said. “In the ’90s?” He drew a breath. “It was crazy.”

Mission

Armed with a steel wool scrub brush, Nick Lopez scoured graffiti from the wall of a Mission Street apartment building. Nearby, a man and woman shouted at each other on the sidewalk, prompting a barely perceptible eye roll from a merchant stocking produce into bins.

洛佩兹耸耸肩。我任务拿下3.3分n the controller’s survey — average for the city, even though the neighborhood has been in the spotlight recently for complaints about sex trafficking and illegal street vending.

Unfazed by these quality-of-life issues, Lopez said he can “avoid a lot of it” by staying inside at night. Chatter on social media doesn’t bother him. If people share videos or commentary about crime, it serves only to dissuade tourists, he said.

Other residents and business owners who spoke with The Chronicle agreed that the Mission is mostly safe and said they are less focused on violent crime than on homelessness, much of it clustered around the 16th Street BART Station.

Orquidea Nic said in Spanish that she tries to distinguish actual danger from unsettling scenes of despair, though she knows other people “are afraid of poverty.”

Christian Schoan Sanchez, a former restaurant owner who now sells shoes and apparel on Mission Street, said he hasn’t noticed a significant increase in crime since he immigrated from Honduras 22 years ago.

The difference now, he said in Spanish, is that “people are always looking at their phones,” making them more attuned to every incident in their neighborhood.

Bayview

A wide cross-section of Bayview residents and workers stream through Constanso’s Sandwiches on a typical Friday morning: bus drivers, construction crews, dog walkers, people pushing strollers or rolling up in hatchback sedans.

Among them was Ruben Martin Jr., a postal employee raised in the Mission, and so deeply rooted there that he sports a tattoo in old English script on the back of his neck: “SFM,” for “San Francisco Mission.”

“People say San Francisco is soft now,” Martin said, shaking his head vigorously and noting, with a hint of pride, that the Outer Mission and Bayview are still “tough neighborhoods.” He said he feels comfortable navigating this southeast corner of the city because he knows so many people and treats everyone with respect.

Survey respondents gave the Bayview a C+, aligning with the city’s overall grade, and with the gentrifying areas of Mission Bay, Nob Hill and the Marina. And on a blue afternoon Third Street bustles, as boutique shops open and Muni Metro railcars glide down the thoroughfare.

However, one merchant assures that by 4 p.m., all the stores will shut down.

“If you go around after 4, you’ll only see liquor stores open,” Renato “Ray” Guerrero said from behind the cash register of La Laguna taqueria, a restaurant he opened decades ago.

Fears of crime are warranted in the Bayview, Guerrero said, explaining that the district has the opposite problem of San Francisco’s wealthier districts — its crime rate doesn’t seem to generate enough interest or news coverage. He mentioned, for example, a shooting that occurred a couple of months ago outside a Wells Fargo across the street from La Laguna.

“It never made the news,” Guerrero said, his voice weary.

On Newhall Street, Henry Butler ran a leaf blower through the parking lot of St. John Missionary Baptist Church. Butler grew up in the area and walks up and down Third Street with a self-assured gait. His main qualm, at this point, is what he views as lackluster police services.

“When you call, the police don’t come,” Butler said, recalling instances when his truck was burglarized and defaced with graffiti, and he was unable to summon an officer.

Outer Richmond/Sea Cliff

Sea Cliff, a wealthy enclave of Mediterranean-style mansions with ocean views, drew a 2.0 score — a D — in the controller’s survey, the worst of any neighborhood. Staff at the controller’s office cautioned that Sea Cliff had only four respondents, corresponding with the area’s small population.

Yet Sea Cliff residents who spoke to The Chronicle this month did not seem surprised by the neighborhood’s low rating. Some said that while they couldn’t see crime happening right in front of them, they were certain it existed blocks away.

“I’ve seen petty crime,” said Jason Zucchetto, a father of two walking up Lake Street, past homes with rose bushes and neatly shorn lawns. Zucchetto said he witnessed a group of guys breaking into cars on Clement Avenue in the nearby Richmond District, and once found stolen luggage dumped on Sea Cliff Avenue that he helped reunite with its owner.

Nonetheless, he said, “I’ve yet to feel unsafe about violent crime.”

Around the block, roofing contractor Edward Au stood supervising a team of workers, a cell phone cradled in his hand. Au grew up in the Richmond and Sunset districts, said he thinks crime is welling up in many parts of the city.

He referenced the attack on the former fire commissioner, which at that time was being framed as a wanton assault by a homeless person rather than a fight the commissioner may have instigated. To Au and others, the incident seemed notable because it occurred in San Francisco’s affluent Marina district — proving, it seemed, that no part of the city is shielded from crime.

Others appeared baffled to hear that Sea Cliff homeowners had complaints about public safety.

“If anything, it’s petty theft,” said Ramsey Badawi, who lives in the Sunset but was pushing a baby stroller through Sea Cliff on Monday afternoon.

“I would not find it to be unsafe,” he added, gesturing at the sprawling, manicured homes. “This —” he paused a beat, “is old money.”

Reach Rachel Swan: rswan@sfchronicle.com