San Francisco Mayor London Breed and the city’s police chief argued that despite the many talks about how the region is suffering from brazen and violent crimes, the crime statistics covering the first half of the year showed reduced crime rates compared to last year.
“There’s no statistic for our outlook and what it perceived about what’s happening in our city,” San Francisco Police Department Chief William Scott said. “What’s not being brought to the forefront is that in almost every single instance, our police department has arrested many of these people,” Breed added.
San Francisco Crime Rate
However, one East Bay resident who follows crime within the city on apps that monitor the statistics said he was watching the data because he works there. He added that the sheer number of crimes within the region has gone way up, with the majority of which being car break-ins.
“I mean this year alone, I’ve seen so many car break-ins, it’s pathetic. I even tried to chase a guy,” resident Nathan Hill said.
But city leaders argued that statistics regarding car break-ins showed the crime has become less frequent this year compared to the last five years. They noted that a similar case could be seen regarding robberies and assaults.
City officials, however, noted that gun violence in the region has shot up, where 119 crimes with guns were observed in the first half of 2021. The numbers are the highest that authorities have seen in the last six years, and are more than double than what was recorded in 2019 shortly before the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic.
San Francisco’s police chief said that officers are finding more homemade, unregistered ghost guns than ever, noting an exponential increase. “They’re dangerous. They’re unregulated. They’re untraceable, and they’re a problem for our city,” Scott said, NBC Bay Area reported.
