Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by Taek 47 days ago
When I was in San Francisco, I had a homeless man with one eye (the empty eye socket actively oozing) come up to me unprovoked (quite literally unprovoked, I was just on a walk and not interacting with anybody at all), get within 2 centimeters of my face, and scream at the top of his lungs "I WILL MURDER YOU". He then walked away and nothing else of note happened (aside from me spending the rest of the evening with my pulse at 140).

Suffice to say, I don't think it's fair to categorize me as a Karen for asserting that San Francisco has a large number of problematic homeless people. I could give about 8 other stories (from SF, Boston, NYC, and Chicago) that happened to me, two of which (both SF) include grown men dropping their pants, exposing their genitals, and visibly pooping on public streets where children were present, with no attempt to obtain any degree of privacy.

These aren't stories from my friends, these are things that I personally witnessed and experienced. These aren't 'oh that guy is ugly and smelly' stories, these are 'if I did that myself I would be arrested' stories.
1 comments
jancsika 47 days ago
> He then walked away and nothing else of note happened (aside from me spending the rest of the evening with my pulse at 140).

Did you call the police after this person made a threat on your life?

link
JuniperMesos 46 days ago
What would the police do about it, arrest the homeless person? Would the local criminal justice system have the capacity to charge and convict them if the cops did so? Many of the cities where visible homelessness is a problem also have shortages of cops that cause them to triage what sorts of incidents they send an officer to respond to?

I probably would not have called the police after this person if this happened to me, because I expect they would do nothing about it.

link
jancsika 46 days ago
Where do you live?

In the U.S. police will show up, investigate, and absolutely arrest someone who made a loud, direct, threat to murder another human being in public.

link
phil21 46 days ago
Not anywhere being discussed here. Chicago it may or may not get added to a dispatch call. Chances of it ever being followed up on are slim. At best you might get a patrol car rolling through a couple hours later to mark the ticket solved.

It’s a pretty common experience for anyone who is out and about using public transit in public spaces. They know nothing will be done to the suspect so what’s the point of bothering to respond at all?

link