Shawn Wen

This is the late Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert.

Two months before this, Dilbert was dropped by major newspapers all over the country when Adams made racist statements about Black people.

He became a YouTuber, commenting on the news of the day.

He then goes on to suggest that cities are done for.

This is Luke Rutkowski, a prominent 9-11 truther and an Alex Jones acolyte.

News of Lee's death caught the attention of many commentators, from those on the fringe to those who are increasingly mainstream.

Dave Rubin is a conservative YouTuber.

His channel has almost 3 million subscribers.

And then Ruben goes on to connect this to the city's political leaders.

It's worth pausing here to ask, where does San Francisco's reputation as a crime-ridden hellhole come from?

The data show that all reported crime in San Francisco is at a 20-year low.

During those early years of the pandemic, crime was also trending down overall, according to SFPD data.

The exceptions that stand out include car thefts, burglaries, and homicides, all of which increased a little.

But the homicide rate is still among the lowest of major cities in the U.S.

In 2023, the year Bob Lee was killed, he was one of only 55 homicides.

But San Francisco suffers from a persistent gap between what the data show and how people feel.

This has prompted questions about how crime data is gathered.

And some prominent tech voices have suggested throwing out the stats altogether.

This topic is kind of a minefield, and many people who are much more knowledgeable than I am have made a go at it.

But what I want to get at is a feeling, a disconnect between the data and people's experiences.