Cash App Founder Bob Lee was fatally stabbed in San Francisco earlier this month. His death was national news — once again the city was accused of failing to get a handle on violent crime. Tech leaders, including Elon Musk, painted the incident as a random mugging gone awry, and claimed that city officials weren’t doing enough to protect the public.
It turns out that Lee knew his alleged murderer. Last week, police charged fellow tech entrepreneur Nima Momeni.
Lee’s killing has reignited debates about violent crime in San Francisco. Overall, the city has a lower violent crime rate and a lower murder rate than most other big cities, including Los Angeles and New York, but many San Franciscans feel more unsafe than they have in decades. San Francisco does have the second highest property crime rate of any major California city (Oakland is No. 1). That’s according to analysis by the San Francisco Chronicle.
“I think what's scary for the city is that economists have predicted that San Francisco is heading towards this so-called doom loop, where there will be fewer and fewer people coming in, and more stores will close, and then fewer people will have fewer reasons to come in. … A lot of that is because people feel unsafe, or they don't feel comfortable in an area where … there's a lot of human misery, and people are calling upon the leaders of the city to do something about that,” says Susie Neilson, a data reporter at the SF Chronicle.