Chronicle: Affirmative Action in Crime Reporting

Noe Valley and Alamo Square are 2 mi apart.

Muggings don't normally make news, but an outbreak that targets a particular group of victims in a formerly low-crime area of San Francisco does merit the front page: [bold added]

Multiple women walking in San Francisco’s Lower Haight neighborhood reported being violently robbed of their smartphones last week, a series of frightening encounters echoing another recent string of similar attacks in Noe Valley.

Three women who spoke to The Chronicle about their encounters described being physically attacked while walking alone near Alamo Square on different nights last week. In each case, thieves forcibly took their cell phones before disappearing in a waiting getaway car, the women said.

At least three assaults and robberies took place during evening hours in the Lower Haight beginning on June 26, the same day similar incidents unfolded during daylight in Noe Valley.

It was unclear if the attacks were carried out by the same group of teenagers that police believe assaulted and robbed at least 11 women in neighborhoods throughout the city last week, including in Noe Valley. Police arrested one juvenile in connection to the Noe Valley attacks but continue to search for up to four others...

Supervisors Rafael Mandelman and Catherine Stefani have asked for increased police patrols to counter the assaults in which young thieves appear to be targeting women walking alone with smartphones.

The Painted Ladies on a normal day (Times of India)

Alamo Square is famed for the "Painted Ladies" Victorians on Steiner Street. (Zillow currently values them from $2 million to $5 million.) It's a nice neighborhood with children playing in the park, one of the few areas that resembles "normal" American suburban life. Bad publicity like this ensures that the police will likely catch the culprits soon.

Comments:
1) One victim, Victoria, hesitated to talk about her violent mugging not only because of her fear of retribution by the gang but because

she was hesitant to share her experience, she said, because she does not “want to fuel the narrative that San Francisco is a crime-ridden hellscape,” noting that she had previously felt safe walking alone in the city.

She sounds like one of San Francisco's residents who is worried that her experience would be used to bash San Francisco's political leadership. She's probably right, and good on her to want to sweep her experience under the rug to not damage Progressive policies even more.

2) The police know a lot about the suspects. They're teenagers who operate in a group and drive stolen getaway cars. The police know where they operate, who they target, and what goods they want to steal. But the Chronicle is strangely silent when it comes to further information. (Hint: if the suspects were white males, the Chronicle in other stories would disclose that fact in the first paragraph.)

Democracy dies in darkness, indeed.