Bob Lee murder - news: San Francisco DA slams Elon Musk as suspect arrested in Cash App founder stabbing
Tech executive Nima Momeni has been arrested in connection with the stabbing death of Cash App founder Bob Lee.
The arrest comes over a week after Lee was found bleeding out in San Francisco’s Rincon Hill neighbourhood just before 3am on 4 April. His last tragic moments as he stumbled, mortally wounded, down Main St in search of help were captured on surveillance footage.
An arrest was made on Thursday morning and Mr Momeni has been booked into the San Francisco Sheriff’s Jail on a murder charge. The San Francisco Police Department confirmed the arrest at a Thursday afternoon press conference in the city.
Investigators had faced growing scrutiny over the pace of the investigation as critics used the case to attack San Francisco’s perceived failure to curb violent crime.
Over the weekend, Mayor London Breed hinted that there may be “surprising facts” in the case and urged the public not to jump to conclusions.
Key Points
Fellow tech executive arrested in Bob Lee killing
Nima Momeni: Who is the tech executive allegedly arrested for murder of Cash App founder Bob Lee?
What we know about the murder of Cash App founder Bob Lee
Timeline of Bob Lee murder
Local officials seek to reassure public about city’s safety
Timeline of Bob Lee murder
01:03 , Graeme Massie
Lee, a much-loved member of the San Francisco tech community, was known as ‘Crazy Bob’.
Timeline of Bob Lee murder – Cash App founder who moved out of San Francisco
San Francisco DA slams Elon Musk as ‘reckless and irresponsible’ after tech executive arrested for Bob Lee murder
Thursday 13 April 2023 21:31 , Graeme Massie
Police confirm Nima Momeni charged with murder
Thursday 13 April 2023 20:42 , Graeme Massie
Officials say that Mr Momeni was taken into custody in Emeryville, California, on 13 April “without incident.”
Police holding press conference in San Francisco
Thursday 13 April 2023 20:39 , Graeme Massie
Officials in San Francisco will give more details on the arrest of a suspect in the Bob Lee murder.
Nima Momeni’s criminal history
Thursday 13 April 2023 20:19 , Graeme Massie
In 2011, Alameda County court records show that he was charged with allegedly selling a switchblade knife and driving with a suspended license, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
Mr Momeni pleaded no contest to the suspended license charge in 2012, and the knife charge was dismissed.
He was sentenced to 10 days in jail as well as three years of probation, received a fine of more than $900 and was ordered to destroy the knife.
The Chronicle also reported that in 2004 he was charged with a misdemeanour for allegedly driving while intoxicated.
Neighbours stunned at Nima Momeni’s arrest
Thursday 13 April 2023 19:16 , Graeme Massie
Bob Lee’s brother welcomes arrest in killing
Thursday 13 April 2023 18:57 , Graeme Massie
We’re thankful for the SFPD for bringing this person to justice so quickly. We look forward to working with District Attorney’s office to prosecute the case. Hopefully now our family can begin the healing process. I also want to thank the thousands of friends, family, and community that have reached out with support over the last week,” Tim Oliver Lee posted on Facebook.
Nima Momeni: Who is the tech executive allegedly arrested for murder of Cash App founder Bob Lee?
Thursday 13 April 2023 18:11 , Graeme Massie
Nima Momeni has been charged with the murder, according to county jail records.
Who is Nima Momeni, the tech executive allegedly arrested for murder of Bob Lee?
SF Supervisor Matt Dorsey welcomes arrest in case
Thursday 13 April 2023 17:50 , Graeme Massie
Bob Lee’s wife says stabbing suspect from Emeryville
Thursday 13 April 2023 17:17 , Graeme Massie
Bob Lee’s wife says that the suspect in her husband’s killing is a man from Emeryville, California, reported KTVU.
“This is the first step toward justice,” Ms Lee said from her home in Miami, where Bob Lee had moved from Mill Valley, California, last year.
The news station said it was withholding the name of the suspect, given to them by Ms Lee, until authorities confirmed it.
Fatal attack was not robbery or random mugging, report says
Thursday 13 April 2023 16:50 , Bevan Hurley
According to reports, the fatal attack was not a robbery attack or a random mugging.
The suspect was reportedly arrested at an address in Emeryville, a city in the Bay Area, early on Thursday.
The San Francisco Police Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
His final tragic moments as he stumbled, mortally wounded, down Main St in San Francisco’s downtown district in search of help were captured on surveillance footage.
Lee stabbed twice by fellow tech executive, report alleges
Thursday 13 April 2023 16:35 , Bevan Hurley
Police have not yet confirmed the identity of the suspect, but the Mission Local news site reports that the person worked in the tech industry and was known to Lee.
Lee, the chief product officer at MobileCoin, had been visiting San Francisco for a tech conference from Miami when he was fatally wounded.
According to the Mission Local, Lee and the suspect had been in a car together in the early hours of 4 April when a fight broke out between the pair.
Citing police sources, the news site alleges that the tech executive stabbed Lee twice outside the vehicle, and a knife was found nearby the 300 block of Main St where he was found by responding officers.
Mayor points to $25m in police overtime funding as concerns grow about public safety
Thursday 13 April 2023 06:10 , Graeme Massie
San Francisco Mayor London Breed spoke about the safety issues in the city on Saturday 8 April following the stabbing death of Mr Lee and the attack on the former fire commissioner.
Ms Breed was taking questions at the Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival, according to ABC7.
Regarding the perception among some that violent crime was taking over San Francisco, Ms Breed said that the city is taking steps to address the issue, such as $25m in funding for police overtime.
“It continues to allow us to do our jobs here and to make sure we’re not only out on the streets to respond to calls for service, but it provides us the ability to do these investigations around the clock,” Ms Breed said.
The city’s police department is more than 500 officers short but the mayor said more applications to join the force are coming in.
“We’re starting to see those applications come in,” she said, adding that a request has been sent to the federal government to help deal with the sale of drugs.
“It looks as though we are probably going to get some support from hopefully the state and federal government and we’ll be able to make that clear what that entails,” she said.
Supervisor Dean Preson represents the Tenderloin District.
“There were stabbings and shootings in my district the Tenderloin over this last week as well, including a homicide, this is obviously incredibly disturbing,” he said, according to ABC7.
The mayor added that “we need to really go aggressively against open-air drug dealing in the Tenderloin not just from a local level, but a state and federal level and I think when that support kicks in it’s going to be a new day in San Francisco”.
Mayor urges public to not jump ‘to conclusions about what they think is happening’
Wednesday 12 April 2023 12:00 , Gustaf Kilander
San Francisco Mayor London Breed spoke about the safety issues in the city on Saturday 8 April following the stabbing death of Mr Lee and the attack on the former fire commissioner.
Ms Breed was taking questions at the Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival, according to ABC7.
“I want to start by making it clear that in both of these cases, the information is still not yet public – they’re under investigation,” she said.
She urged the public to not get ahead of the facts.
“When the facts of many of these cases come out, many people are going to be surprised,” the mayor said, adding that social media has been a platform where the safety in the city has been questioned.
“It has really heightened events like this as well as people jumping to conclusions about what they think is happening,” she said.
‘A small minority has tried to weaponize this tragedy,’ police commissioner says
Wednesday 12 April 2023 10:00 , Gustaf Kilander
The San Francisco police Commissioner Kevin Benedicto said at a meeting of the commission earlier this week that some social media users “are exploiting this horrific incident for political gain”.
“A small minority has tried to weaponize this tragedy to advance a narrative about a crime wave that just isn’t borne out by the data in San Francisco,” he added on Thursday, according to The New York Times.
“There are real problems about crime that need to be addressed in San Francisco,” he told the paper. “But you’re seeing people from tech, from certain political circles, who are trying to draw explicit connections to certain policies and elected officials when we don’t even yet know the facts of the case.”
Mayor points to $25m in police overtime funding as concerns grow about public safety
Wednesday 12 April 2023 04:00 , Gustaf Kilander
San Francisco Mayor London Breed spoke about the safety issues in the city on Saturday 8 April following the stabbing death of Mr Lee and the attack on the former fire commissioner.
Ms Breed was taking questions at the Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival, according to ABC7.
Regarding the perception among some that violent crime was taking over San Francisco, Ms Breed said that the city is taking steps to address the issue, such as $25m in funding for police overtime.
“It continues to allow us to do our jobs here and to make sure we’re not only out on the streets to respond to calls for service, but it provides us the ability to do these investigations around the clock,” Ms Breed said.
The city’s police department is more than 500 officers short but the mayor said more applications to join the force are coming in.
“We’re starting to see those applications come in,” she said, adding that a request has been sent to the federal government to help deal with the sale of drugs.
“It looks as though we are probably going to get some support from hopefully the state and federal government and we’ll be able to make that clear what that entails,” she said.
Supervisor Dean Preson represents the Tenderloin District.
“There were stabbings and shootings in my district the Tenderloin over this last week as well, including a homicide, this is obviously incredibly disturbing,” he said, according to ABC7.
The mayor added that “we need to really go aggressively against open-air drug dealing in the Tenderloin not just from a local level, but a state and federal level and I think when that support kicks in it’s going to be a new day in San Francisco”.
Crime in San Francisco
Wednesday 12 April 2023 03:00 , Bevan Hurley
Violent crime and homicide is much lower in San Francisco than in many other large US cities, according to local and FBI crime data.
The northern California city reported 6.9 homicides per 100,000 people in 2021. That compares to 66 in St Louis, 47 in Detroit and 10 in Los Angeles.
But many city residents say the city has failed to deal with a rampant homelessness and drug use. Police crime data shows that motor vehicle theft and burglary are up significantly from last year.
Of the 13 homicides reported in San Francisco this year, just three have been solved, according to an analysis by ABC7.
The city’s homicide clearance rate over the past few years appears to closely track the number of sworn officers.
In 2021, the most recent year that records are available, 77 per cent of the 56 homicides that occurred in the city were solved. The city had 2,129 sworn officers that year.
In 2018, when San Francisco had 2,306 officers, the police department cleared a record high 96 percent of its 46 reported homicides.
Mayor Breed said earlier this week that San Francisco is at least 500 officers short, adding that applications were improving after she announced an increase in salary rates.
Mayor urges public to not jump ‘to conclusions about what they think is happening’
Wednesday 12 April 2023 02:00 , Gustaf Kilander
San Francisco Mayor London Breed spoke about the safety issues in the city on Saturday 8 April following the stabbing death of Mr Lee and the attack on the former fire commissioner.
Ms Breed was taking questions at the Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival, according to ABC7.
“I want to start by making it clear that in both of these cases, the information is still not yet public – they’re under investigation,” she said.
She urged the public to not get ahead of the facts.
“When the facts of many of these cases come out, many people are going to be surprised,” the mayor said, adding that social media has been a platform where the safety in the city has been questioned.
“It has really heightened events like this as well as people jumping to conclusions about what they think is happening,” she said.
What city officials have said about the murder
Wednesday 12 April 2023 01:00 , Bevan Hurley
In his first public statement a day after Lee’s death, San Francisco Police Chief William Scott said that was too early to provide any information on evidence they had gathered or speculate on a motive or the circumstances of the killing.
Mr Scott added that every lead was being pursued tirelessly in the case.
Two days later, Mr Scott told CBS San Francisco it was still too soon to know whether the stabbing was a random attack. He added that the lack of information being released was due to police wanting to preserve the integrity of the investigation.
In the hours after Lee’s death, District Attorney Brooke Jenkins was asked on Twitter by Elon Musk what she was doing to lock up repeat violent offenders.
While not addressing Mr Musk directly, Ms Jenkins responded the following day to say it was her “top priority”.
“As a former homicide prosecutor, I have a deep understanding of how these investigations & prosecutions work. I direct our staff to ensure that cases are vigorously prosecuted.”
Conspiracy theories and attacks on the San Francisco Police Department’s supposed toothless response to violent crime quickly filled the information void.
Amid a deluge of social media criticism, Police Commissioner Kevin Benedicto said at a public meeting on Wednesday that some were “exploiting this horrific incident for political gain”.
“I find it premature and distasteful to try to fit this horrifying act of violence into a preconceived narrative and use it to advance a political agenda,” Mr Benedicto added.
On Monday, Mayor London Breed urged the public not to rush to conclusions about Lee’s murder and a brutal attack on former San Francisco Fire commissioner Don Carmigiani.
“When the facts of many of these cases come out, many people are going to be surprised,” Ms Breed said in comments to media at the Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival in San Francisco.
While most city officials pushed back at claims that violence was out of control in the city, District 4 Supervisor Joel Engardio acknowledged that many residents were living in fear.
In a Twitter thread last week, he said the city police department Ms Jenkins was rebuilding a prosecutor’s office that had been “dismantled by her predecessor” Chesa Boudin, who was recalled last year.
“It’s no consolation to say San Francisco had three times as many murders in the 1970s. What matters is how people feel today and they don’t feel safe,” Mr Engardio said.
What we know about Lee’s final moments
Tuesday 11 April 2023 23:00 , Bevan Hurley
After relocating from San Francisco to Miami in October last year, Lee had returned to attend a MobileCoin leadership conference in the city, friends say.
Surveillance footage taken at 2.30am on 4 April from the Portside apartment building at 403 Main St showed a mortally wounded Lee desperately trying to find help.
The footage captured Lee approaching several cars while clutching his stab wounds in one hand and his cell phone in the other.
He lifts his shirt to show the driver of a parked Toyota Camry the extent of his injuries, but the car immediately drives off.
Lee called 911 at 2.34am pleading for help, according to a recording. Police arrived six minutes later, and summoned medics to the scene. Lee was rushed to San Fransisco General Hospital where he died soon afterwards.
Police refused to confirm whether a man who was spotted on CCTV wheeling a suitcase away from the area where Lee was murdered was a suspect.
It’s also unclear whether a murder weapon has been recovered, if any personal items were stolen, or what Lee was doing prior to being stabbed. Police have not responded to numerous requests for comment by The Independent.
Mr Lee had been staying about half a mile from where he was found with fatal stab wounds at the 1 Hotel on the Embarcadero, according to the San Francisco Standard.
CCTV from the Lumina apartment building, which neighbours the Portside, has also been reviewed by police.
The area close to downtown San Francisco is home to Google’s city headquarters and luxury high-rise apartment buildings. The median household income in the area was more than $244,000, according to the last Census.
Lee’s distraught friends and colleagues in the tech world quickly linked his death to the city’s “lawlessness” and recidivism. Many presumed that the stabbing was an attempted robbery.
Lee had apparently stayed on in San Francisco for an extra day after the conference had ended.
His estranged wife Krista and two daughters Dagny and Scout reportedly still live in San Francisco.
How violent is San Francisco?
Tuesday 11 April 2023 22:00 , Josh Marcus
Following Lee’s death, many on social media, particulary in the close-knit tech world, echoed the Tesla founder’s point, with one Redditor who said they knew Lee writing, “I’m getting so sick of all the needless violence in SF.”
How violent is San Francisco? Have city officials given up on fighting crime? And do San Francisco police really release violent offenders, as Mr Musk claims? The answer, as with so much when it comes to online debates, is far more complicated that what’s playing out on social media.
To start, the city isn’t among the most dangerous in America, according to statistics.
Despite being one of the country’s largest cities by population, San Francisco wasn’t in the top 10 cities with the highest homicide rate in the US, according to an analysis of local and federal crime data from WLBT.
Those cities –Jackson, Mississippi; New Orleans, Louisiana; Birmingham, Alabama; St Louis, Missouri; Baltimore, Maryland; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Detroit, Michigan; Cleveland, Ohio; Memphis, Tennessee; and Milwaukee, Wisconsin – were almost all concentrated in the Midwest and South in Republican-controlled states with high poverty rates.
In fact, violent crime rates have largely been declining in San Francisco since peaking in the 1990s, with the beginning of 2022 marking the lowest level of reported violent crime since 1985, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
Inequality drives public safety issues in San Francisco
Tuesday 11 April 2023 20:00 , Josh Marcus
Some experts say it is this inequality that drives public safety issues in San Francisco.
“There is not a crime spike happening, except in limited areas,” James King, a criminal justice reform activist in the Bay Area with the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, told Jewish Currents last year. “But what is, I hope, peaking is frustration with a diminishing quality of life as a result of the pandemic. The pandemic revealed serious inequities in our society, as well as a lack of social safety net infrastructure to mitigate them.”
He added that San Franciscans sometimes have a heightened perception of crime and disorder because of the visibility of problems like the lack of housing.
“That type of visibility causes genuine discomfort for people who have more resources,” Mr King continued. “What’s lacking is any type of plan to deal with the root causes of what we’re seeing.”
In the face of this reality, where Fortune 500 companies share blocks with encampments of homeless people, many within the tech and business communities have complained that city officials don’t do enough to stop crime.
Cash App creator Bob Lee was murdered over a week ago. Why haven’t San Francisco police caught his killer?
Tuesday 11 April 2023 19:00 , Bevan Hurley
It’s been over one week since Robert Harold “Crazy Bob” Lee was stabbed to death in San Francisco, and police are yet to publicly identify any suspects.
Cash App founder Lee, 43, was spotted on surveillance footage stumbling along Main St in Rincon Hill at around 2.30am on 4 April pleading for help.
In a 911 call, Lee reportedly said “someone stabbed me”. He died in hospital soon after being found by authorities.
The high-profile slaying of the MobileCoin chief product officer has shaken San Francisco and placed a spotlight on the city’s crime rates.
Lee’s incensed friends in the tech community blamed the city’s pursuit of progressive law enforcement policies, with one claiming they had “Bob’s literal blood on their hands”.
Read more:
Bob Lee was murdered over a week ago. Why haven’t police caught his killer?
Mayor points to $25m in police overtime funding as concerns grow about public safety
Tuesday 11 April 2023 18:00 , Gustaf Kilander
San Francisco Mayor London Breed spoke about the safety issues in the city on Saturday 8 April following the stabbing death of Mr Lee and the attack on the former fire commissioner.
Ms Breed was taking questions at the Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival, according to ABC7.
Regarding the perception among some that violent crime was taking over San Francisco, Ms Breed said that the city is taking steps to address the issue, such as $25m in funding for police overtime.
“It continues to allow us to do our jobs here and to make sure we’re not only out on the streets to respond to calls for service, but it provides us the ability to do these investigations around the clock,” Ms Breed said.
The city’s police department is more than 500 officers short but the mayor said more applications to join the force are coming in.
“We’re starting to see those applications come in,” she said, adding that a request has been sent to the federal government to help deal with the sale of drugs.
“It looks as though we are probably going to get some support from hopefully the state and federal government and we’ll be able to make that clear what that entails,” she said.
Supervisor Dean Preson represents the Tenderloin District.
“There were stabbings and shootings in my district the Tenderloin over this last week as well, including a homicide, this is obviously incredibly disturbing,” he said, according to ABC7.
The mayor added that “we need to really go aggressively against open-air drug dealing in the Tenderloin not just from a local level, but a state and federal level and I think when that support kicks in it’s going to be a new day in San Francisco”.
Mayor urges public to not jump ‘to conclusions about what they think is happening’
Tuesday 11 April 2023 16:00 , Gustaf Kilander
San Francisco Mayor London Breed spoke about the safety issues in the city on Saturday 8 April following the stabbing death of Mr Lee and the attack on the former fire commissioner.
Ms Breed was taking questions at the Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival, according to ABC7.
“I want to start by making it clear that in both of these cases, the information is still not yet public – they’re under investigation,” she said.
She urged the public to not get ahead of the facts.
“When the facts of many of these cases come out, many people are going to be surprised,” the mayor said, adding that social media has been a platform where the safety in the city has been questioned.
“It has really heightened events like this as well as people jumping to conclusions about what they think is happening,” she said.
Music mogul’s Democrat daughter blames liberal politicians for San Francisco Cash App founder stabbing
Tuesday 11 April 2023 14:00 , Gustaf Kilander
Actor and model Sara Foster has blamed the “liberal” politicians leading San Francisco following the stabbing death of the co-founder of Cash App Bob Lee.
The tech guru called 911 and said he was bleeding out as he lay dying from his wounds on a street in the city, new audio has revealed.
Police found the 43-year-old unconscious on the pavement at around 2.40am on Tuesday, about six minutes after he called the emergency services to say that he had been attacked and was bleeding heavily, according to The San Francisco Standard.
Mr Lee was taken to San Francisco General Hospital, where he passed away.
Little information has been released about the stabbing and the authorities haven’t shared any details about a possible suspect.
Read more:
Music mogul’s daughter blames liberal politicians for Cash App founder stabbing
Perception remains that city officials are soft on crime despite mayoral push for increased police funding
Tuesday 11 April 2023 13:00 , Josh Marcus
Despite initially overseeing a $120m reinvestment from the SFPD budget to other social service programmes aimed at minority communities, San Francisco Mayor London Breed has emerged as a backer for increased police funding.
Last month, she asked the city Board of Supervisors to approve a $27m budget supplemental to fund police overtime. Between 2019 and 2022, even with the $120m cuts, the SFPD budget still grew by 4.4 per cent, and none of the reinvestments cut active-duty officer positions, KGO reported.
In the last five years, San Francisco police clearance rates for assault and robbery also declined. San Francisco police have said some issues are the result of staffing issues, and that the department is running at about 75 per cent capacity.
The mayor’s stance on policing has even won plaudits from the conservative-leaning Wall Street Journal editorial board.
Nonetheless, a perception remains that city officials are soft on crime, with much of the anger funneled at former DA Chesa Boudin, who was eventually recalled in 2022. He took steps alternatively celebrated by criminal justice reformers and reviled by critics, such as rolling back the use of often racially disproportionate “sentence enhancements,” and directing prosecutors to consider the immigration status of certain drug criminals and avoid high-level charges against non-violent offenders who could be deported.
Inequality drives public safety issues in San Francisco
Tuesday 11 April 2023 12:00 , Josh Marcus
Some experts say it is this inequality that drives public safety issues in San Francisco.
“There is not a crime spike happening, except in limited areas,” James King, a criminal justice reform activist in the Bay Area with the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, told Jewish Currents last year. “But what is, I hope, peaking is frustration with a diminishing quality of life as a result of the pandemic. The pandemic revealed serious inequities in our society, as well as a lack of social safety net infrastructure to mitigate them.”
He added that San Franciscans sometimes have a heightened perception of crime and disorder because of the visibility of problems like the lack of housing.
“That type of visibility causes genuine discomfort for people who have more resources,” Mr King continued. “What’s lacking is any type of plan to deal with the root causes of what we’re seeing.”
In the face of this reality, where Fortune 500 companies share blocks with encampments of homeless people, many within the tech and business communities have complained that city officials don’t do enough to stop crime.
San Francisco safer than cities with comparable populations
Tuesday 11 April 2023 11:00 , Josh Marcus
The city of Jackson, Mississippi, the place with the highest per capita murder rate by some measures, had nearly 13 times more murders per capita than San Francisco, according to city police data.
Meanwhile, the Bay Area tech hub, which saw 56 homicides in 2022, is in fact safer than cities with comparable populations like Indianapolis, where 210 people died last year in criminal homicides, or Charlotte-Mecklenburg, North Carolina, where 110 people were killed in 2022.
As The Independent has reported, despite relentless depictions in the media of liberal states like California or Illinois as the leading zones of violence in the US, red states also typically suffer the highest rates of gun violence and gun death.
That’s not to obscure San Francisco’s struggles. The city has grappled for years with deep inequalities: it is home to some of the wealthiest corporations in the world, as well as one of the nation’s highest rates of unhoused people without shelter. According to a 2022 analysis from the San Francisco Chronicle, using household income data, San Francisco is the third most unequal city in the country.
How violent is San Francisco?
Tuesday 11 April 2023 10:00 , Josh Marcus
Following Lee’s death, many on social media, particulary in the close-knit tech world, echoed the Tesla founder’s point, with one Redditor who said they knew Lee writing, “I’m getting so sick of all the needless violence in SF.”
How violent is San Francisco? Have city officials given up on fighting crime? And do San Francisco police really release violent offenders, as Mr Musk claims? The answer, as with so much when it comes to online debates, is far more complicated that what’s playing out on social media.
To start, the city isn’t among the most dangerous in America, according to statistics.
Despite being one of the country’s largest cities by population, San Francisco wasn’t in the top 10 cities with the highest homicide rate in the US, according to an analysis of local and federal crime data from WLBT.
Those cities –Jackson, Mississippi; New Orleans, Louisiana; Birmingham, Alabama; St Louis, Missouri; Baltimore, Maryland; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Detroit, Michigan; Cleveland, Ohio; Memphis, Tennessee; and Milwaukee, Wisconsin – were almost all concentrated in the Midwest and South in Republican-controlled states with high poverty rates.
In fact, violent crime rates have largely been declining in San Francisco since peaking in the 1990s, with the beginning of 2022 marking the lowest level of reported violent crime since 1985, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
A tech CEO has been murdered and Elon Musk blames San Francisco’s ‘horrific’ rise in crime. Is he right?
Tuesday 11 April 2023 09:00 , Josh Marcus
Bob Lee, the founder of the Cash App, was stabbed to death in San Francisco in an apparently random early morning mugging on Tuesday, according to friends and colleagues.
The well-respected tech executive, who also served previous roles at companies Square and Block, was mourned by members of the tech community in San Francisco and beyond, including Twitter owner Elon Musk, who vented his frustrations about the city’s violent crime.
“Many people I know have been severely assaulted,” Mr Musk tweeted on Wednesday. “Violent crime in SF is horrific and even if attackers are caught, they are often released immediately.”
Read more:
Elon Musk blames ‘horrific’ San Francisco for a tech guru’s murder. Is he right?
Sunset District residents criticise lack of focus on crime in neigbourhood
Tuesday 11 April 2023 08:00 , Gustaf Kilander
Residents of the Sunset District in San Francisco have criticised the lack of focus on crime in the neighbourhood following the stabbing of tech executive Bob Lee.
“The focus has been on downtown and that’s not all of San Francisco. San Francisco has neighbourhoods, they need to be equally represented in terms of police, fire, the works,” Helen Smith told ABC7.
“We don’t have the right number of policemen,” she added.
“Right now, all the places are not safe, even in the Sunset that’s why we [are] concerned about it,” Elaine Trang said.
San Francisco Police Department short of 548 officers even as applications increase
Tuesday 11 April 2023 07:00 , Gustaf Kilander
The San Francisco Police Department is short of 548 officers even as applications increase, Chief Bill Scott has said.
“Our applications have gone up we’re double where we were last year on applications,” he said, according to ABC7.
Supervisor Joel Engardio represents the largest neighbourhood in the city, the Sunset District.
“I want to point out some good news. We have got to think about some good news today. I’m hopeful because you see our district attorney and our police chief sitting together here ... I cannot emphasize enough how important this is,” he said on Thursday night.
“We have to do all this together because we do well when we can do it together but we still have a long way to go,” Shief Scott added.
‘I can’t imagine a situation where he would instigate a conflict'
Tuesday 11 April 2023 06:00 , Gustaf Kilander
Lee was generous with his time coaching and championing fellow engineers and entrepreneurs, said Wesley Chan, co-founder of FPV Ventures. The two met more than a decade ago when they both worked at Google, where Lee helped to build the Android smartphone operating system before its 2008 release.
Lee’s death has further enflamed debate over public safety in San Francisco and its moribund downtown, which has not yet bounced back from the pandemic. Twitter’s owner Elon Musk took to the social media site to post that “violent crime in SF is horrific and even if attackers are caught, they are often released immediately.” Musk tagged the city’s district attorney in the post.
San Francisco suffers from property crime more than violent crime such as murder, rape, robbery and assault. In a statement, San Francisco Mayor London Breed called the homicide “a horrible tragedy” and said that the city is prioritizing public safety.
Longtime friend Tommy Sowers said it’s hard to picture what led to Lee’s violent death.
“I can’t imagine a situation where he would instigate a conflict,” he said. “That’s the tragedy of it.”
‘A small minority has tried to weaponize this tragedy,’ police commissioner says
Tuesday 11 April 2023 05:00 , Gustaf Kilander
The San Francisco police Commissioner Kevin Benedicto said at a meeting of the commission earlier this week that some social media users “are exploiting this horrific incident for political gain”.
“A small minority has tried to weaponize this tragedy to advance a narrative about a crime wave that just isn’t borne out by the data in San Francisco,” he added on Thursday, according to The New York Times.
“There are real problems about crime that need to be addressed in San Francisco,” he told the paper. “But you’re seeing people from tech, from certain political circles, who are trying to draw explicit connections to certain policies and elected officials when we don’t even yet know the facts of the case.”
Former fire commissioner badly injured in brutal attack in San Francisco
Tuesday 11 April 2023 04:00 , Bevan Hurley
Former San Franciso fire commissioner Don Carmignani has undergone emergency skull surgery after being brutally beaten by a man armed with a metal pipe, his family said.
The 53-year-old was attacked around 7.20pm on Wednesday outside his parent’s home on Magnolia Stree in the Marina district,The San Francisco Chronicle reported.
A suspect, identified by police as 24-year-old Garret Doty, was arrested nearby shortly afterwards.
The vicious assault came a day after tech executive Bob Leewas stabbed to death in the city’s Rincon Hill neighbourhood. It has further fuelled anger and fear among residents about crime rates in the California city.
Read more:
Former fire commissioner badly injured in brutal attack in San Francisco
12 homicides in San Francisco so far in 2023
Tuesday 11 April 2023 03:00 , Bevan Hurley
Police crime data shows there has been 12 homicides in San Francisco so far in 2023, two more than over the same period last year.
Bob Lee, a father of two, has been hailed as a visionary tech entrepreneur who helped create mobile phone apps used by tens of millions of people.
He led a team that developed the Cash App while working as a senior executive at Square, a digital payment firm now called Block.
Since 2021, Lee had been the chief product officer at MobileCoin.
Police chief pushes back against claims about San Francisco crime rate
Tuesday 11 April 2023 02:00 , Bevan Hurley
In audio from a police scanner obtained by NBC Bay Area, a dispatcher can be heard relaying Bob Lee’s 911 call to responding officers.
“There’s a male screaming ‘help,’ saying, ‘someone stabbed me’,” the police dispatcher says. “Advised he is bleeding out.”
In the days since Lee’s brutal stabbing, San Francisco residents have voiced their fear and frustration at perceived lawlessness in the city.
Many of Lee’s former friends and colleagues in Silicon Valley, including Elon Musk, have blamed San Francisco’s progressive law enforcement policies for his death.
Speaking to CBS San Francisco, Chief Scott said claims that violent crime was out of control in the city were inaccurate.
“When you look at San Francisco’s violent crime rate compared to other cities... we’re towards the bottom for major cities. That never gets talked about.”
Lee pleaded for help on 911 call
Tuesday 11 April 2023 01:00 , Bevan Hurley
Bob Lee, 43, was stabbed multiple times in the chest at around 2.30am on Tuesday morning in San Francisco’s Rincon Hill neighbourhood.
Surveillance footage captured the tech executive staggering down Main St trying to flag down vehicles, before he collapsed outside the luxury Portside apartment building at 403 Main St.
Lee could be heard pleading for help on a 911 call made at 2.34am. Police arrived six minutes later, and Lee was rushed to San Francisco General Hospital where he was later pronounced dead.
Bob Lee: Police say it’s ‘too early’ to tell if Cash App founder’s fatal stabbing was a random attack
Tuesday 11 April 2023 00:00 , Bevan Hurley
The San Francisco police chief says it’s still too early to say whether the fatal stabbing of Cash App founder Bob Lee was a random or targeted attack.
William Scott told CBS San Francisco he was “100 per cent confident” the brutal murder would be solved, and asked for patience as police continue to pursue leads in the case.
“What I will tell you is our homicide team is working tirelessly to get this to a resolution,” Chief Scott told the network.
“We have a lot that’s on our plate with this investigation and following up on things that need to be followed up on. We’ll put the information out but we don’t want to do anything to compromise this investigation,” he added.
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Police say it’s ‘too early’ to tell if Bob Lee’s fatal stabbing was random
District Attorney says Bob Lee’s murder is 'going to take time to solve’
Monday 10 April 2023 23:00 , Gustaf Kilander
San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins told ABC7 that “anytime we have somebody who has committed murder, we should all be concerned if they are out and about on our streets. That is why SFPD is working so hard to solve this case ... Unfortunately, this is one that’s going to take time to solve”.
She was asked by the outlet if she would “consider it unusual for a kitchen knife to be used in an alleged targeted attack?”
“As a former prosecutor in our homicide unit, I have seen murders committed in all various types of ways. Oftentimes people who choose to commit murder choose to do it in ways they believe they can more successfully get away with it,” Ms Jenkins said.
“I would ask that people not rush to judgment about the circumstances of this murder, we have nothing about how this happened, whether this was a repeat offender or a targeted attack,” she added.
Convenience store owner says ‘we’ve never seen anything like this’
Monday 10 April 2023 22:00 , Gustaf Kilander
Bob Lee was staying at the One Hotel, about half a mile from where he was found.
Sam Habash has operated a convenience store for almost 20 years located across the street from the apartment building in Portside where Mr Lee was discovered.
“This doesn’t happen a lot around here,” he told ABC7. “We’ve never seen anything like this ... this is too much, my condolences to the family.”
