Photographer Killed at SF’s Twin Peaks in Camera Robbery

PKR said:
MS13 has a big presence in both San Francisco and Los Angeles. Police in both those cities are out gunned by them. But, I doubt they are stealing cameras. They mostly sell drugs, weapons (including some high power stuff) and traffic in women.

They are notorious for a flow of money into city governments to avoid stiff penalties by law enforcement when caught and convicted.
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But drug users steal cameras and other things to buy drugs from gang members. MS 13 are the primary beneficiaries of theft in the areas they control.

I am glad to be in Japan. Japan has little crime, and the lack of a drug culture has a lot to do with that. Drug laws are mercilessly enforced here.

I once left a bag with my Macbook and a black paint M4 sitting on the subway platform. It was still there when I returned 30 minutes later.
 
I lived in NYC for 15 years and have now been in the Bay Area for two. I will say that living in big cities increases your chances of seeing and experiencing some unsavory things, such is the gamut of humanity. This article hit home on a few levels since I've made fast friends with a lot of local photogs hanging out at some of the shops like Glass Key and just walking around with a camera out. For about the first year or so I was living in Miraloma Park, a neighborhood in the shadow of Mount Davidson and Twin Peaks. I've only been up to Twin Peaks a few times since tourist hordes aren't exactly my idea of fun. Equal or better views can be had in many other places. I remember hearing a story about a shooting, likely gang related, up there earlier this year that killed at least one. Up until then I'd heard it was pretty quiet. Most of the ruckus happened downtown. To have a fellow photog lose his life over a camera is just horrible. I was taught early on in my martial arts training that you'll never win against a gun (or a knife for that matter), especially when the person is desperate enough to want to rob you. I wonder if him yielding to his attackers would've saved his life.

I now work downtown on the edge of Chinatown and walk there day and night. Yes there are some damaged people walking the streets at night but they've always been polite to me unlike my experiences in NYC. I've been living in North Oakland for several months and I've never felt uncomfortable once with or without my camera. Just the other day a fellow who rode into my shot did protest at having had his picture taken but that was it. He didn't ask for the picture to be deleted (which isn't possible anyway). That's the single incident in memory I've had after having shot thousands and thousands of frames since I've been here, again also unlike NYC. I've also been following the news about some small groups of kids terrorizing and robbing people on the trains and buses and it has definitely made me heighten my senses but I haven't let it affect the way I live or the way I shoot. Crime is happening in every city but there are certainly those moments that stand out and will shake us like this one. Let it not deter from our enjoyment of our life and our craft.
 
I just arrived here in San Francisco this afternoon, visiting with my daughter. I have every intention of taking her up to Twin Peaks. As I recall, there were down times with little traffic circulating through there, so on the one hand it was more pleasurable being up there, but a person could be more vulnerable. I will be alert not only there but wherever we are, i.e. Golden Gate Park and even at the ocean if there aren't a lot of people around.

Throughout the 80s, I would drive taxi here nights and occasionally things got dicey, even when I'd learned to avoid trouble. As areas were becoming gentrified like the Fillmore, lower Haight and Hayes Valley, there was a lot of resentment and it led to higher and particularly violent crime.

Camera or no camera, it's good to be on one's toes in certain areas of the city.

David
 
PKR said:
I have no statistics backing my guess but, I think the random crimes against tourists are just that, pigeons and hawks. The high end camera crimes seem well organized with buyers likely putting out "wants" for a category of hardware. Auto thieves often operate on a want list of prices paid per listed item. I'll bet these thieves know the difference between an inexpensive amateur camera and something a pro would use, and owned by a tourist.

A Red Camera, mentioned in another thread I posted, would be impossible to get serviced with recorded serial numbers. These cameras are being used by the buyers.

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=162069x
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I have a few sacrifice cameras, D40 and non repairable D3.
 
BlackXList said:
You missed the one by the McDonalds at the park end of Haight, pretty much at the same time
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I wasn't looking. The one posted showed up in the national news feed I read. I posted it because a post or so back cited a RFFer who is now in San Francisco. I thought he might see the park thing here if he missed it on the news.

It's getting hard to find non opinionated or unbiased news these days. Seems the special interests own the media. I guess an argument might be made that it was always that way. But, it seems worse now. With citizen journalists posting on the web, many news sources have had to clean up their acts. I don't have any idea how much $ SF makes on tourism in a year, but it's got to be a lot. So, pressure to make "all look friendly" is likely leveraged on the local media. It wasn't until the media camera units began getting hit, that I paid any attention to was going on in SF. You hear about Detroit, Chicago and LA, but almost never about SF. My experience anyway.
 
Tourists destinations

Tybee Island, GA

Bombs and sharks.. just to show what tourist money does to public safety:

"Tybee shark attacks[edit]

On June 15, 2016, the Tybee city council voted 4-1 to withhold shark attack numbers where the attacks did not result in loss of life. According to an article in the "Savannah Morning News", the vote was a direct result of pressure from local businesses which had seen a decline in tourism due to recent reported shark activity. [14]"


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tybee_Island,_Georgia
 
PKR said:
I wasn't looking. The one posted showed up in the national news feed I read. I posted it because a post or so back cited a RFFer who is now in San Francisco. I thought he might see the park thing here if he missed it on the news.

It's getting hard to find non opinionated or unbiased news these days. Seems the special interests own the media. I guess an argument might be made that it was always that way. But, it seems worse now. With citizen journalists posting on the web, many news sources have had to clean up their acts. I don't have any idea how much $ SF makes on tourism in a year, but it's got to be a lot. So, pressure to make "all look friendly" is likely leveraged on the local media. It wasn't until the media camera units began getting hit, that I paid any attention to was going on in SF. You hear about Detroit, Chicago and LA, but almost never about SF. My experience anyway.
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PKR- Thank you if you posted so I'd see it. As I recall I only saw the news of the Delores Park incident after my post. I did pass by that park yesterday while driving and was stopped at a light. Everything was calm, lots of people milling about; I'd not have hesitated to walk through. We were on our way up to Twin Peaks and people there seemed unaware that anything had happened. We had a calm hike up from parking and others did the same.

Happy to say that all of our travels have been enjoyable. I don't say this to lessen the severity of the awful incidents that occurred here so recently but the general feel here, and I've covered the city pretty well, is similar to any other city I have visited in the past few years.

David
 
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