Taking Care of the Poor, San Francisco Style, 2021

There is something humanly disturbing and wrong about how we Americans have decided to NOT handle poor homeless people in need. In some areas of the country people look down on street people as being lazy addicts who deserve whatever happens to them. In left-wing San Francisco we view our hands-off approach through the lens of individual rights and respecting the choice that people have… we honor the “decision” to do drugs, stay on the street, and survive however they can.

Our determination to let other humans rot on the street is apparently official.

Last Thursday afternoon I was sitting with a friend on a Castro Street parklet enjoying a cocktail.  While sipping our drinks we watched a disoriented man go back and forth on the sidewalk. He looked to be either on drugs or on an internal mental journey. But, he didn’t approach us so we pretty much lost track of him.

Then out of the side of my eye I saw him fall in the middle of the sidewalk.

How San Francisco Handles the Homeless - 1 of 5
Our attention shifted to see if he got up, moved, or otherwise looked okay. He did none of those things. Instead, we watched pedestrians change course to walk around him. No one stopped or took any action.

So, I called the Police Department to report a man down on sidewalk. I explained that he looked like a homeless man in bad health who collapsed. I tried to make the call urgent and wouldn’t speculate that he was drunk or otherwise a low priority.

Within a few minutes — and after a follow-up call or two — officers arrived.

How San Francisco Handles the Homeless - 2 of 5

They were nice officers. At least the one I talked to was friendly and reasonable. They made contact and assured themselves that the man did not need paramedics.

Then they followed apparent policy.

How San Francisco Handles the Homeless - 3 of 5They had the man crawl with his crutch over to the side of the walkway where he would not be in the way. Then they left.

How San Francisco Handles the Homeless - 5 of 5I was — and still am — stunned. Here’s a man who effectively cannot walk, and we respect his “right” to pass out by the side of a building.

When I was a police dispatcher 40+ years ago, I was trained that California’s Health and Welfare code is supposed to protect people who are either a danger to others or to themselves. Officers, doctors, and some other people are empowered to put people in a hospital for 72 hours… even if the person objects. I cannot conceive of a time when I would have sent a unit to a situation like the one I observed and the officers would have left the man still down on the sidewalk.

But in 2021 we do that in San Francisco. I don’t know the official policy wording that has police walk away from someone clearly gravely disabled. But, whether we say it’s”individual freedom” or other lofty reason, we are doing it wrong.

We need to take care of the crazy and the drug addled. I am not advocating making the streets “cleaner” or even safer. We simply owe each other enough care to give safe shelter and food to the desperate among us. Even if they say they don’t want it.

By |2021-09-07T12:46:46-07:00September 5, 2021|philippic, Social Justice|1 Comment

What Is the Motive of the Roseburg Shooter?

Seriously? A motive?

The media demand to know why this murderer shot his arsenal in the classroom. They badger the police and interview professional television interviewees about what set off the shooting.

Every mass shooting plays out with similar, pointless questions.

The shooter is crazy. Do we need to “understand” his psychotic delusions?  Can we possibly follow the logic he used as he plotted mass murder?

Brain Puzzle

We Normals crave the ability to understand the psychotic’s mental process, presumably so we could argue with and save the next delusional man bent on exterminating random people around him. But, trying to translate crazy thought into a rational motive is nonsensical.  They exist in different worlds.

We experience the tortured search for a motive with every mass shooting… and there’s been enough of those recently that the pattern of reaction is becoming routine.  We want to know why.  We want to understand. We act like we expect to avoid future incidents  by somehow mitigating the crazy thoughts internally tormenting every disturbed person in the country.

  • Was the shooter bullied as a child?
  • Was he persecuted for being white? for being religious? for not being religious? for being short? for being gay?
  • Was Mom too tolerant and Dad too distant?  The other way around?
  • Was he flunking out? Going to be fired? Being dumped by his girlfriend?

But, folks!  Stop it! It doesn’t matter what perceived injustice causes a shooter to shoot. The fact is that the guy is crazy.  Dangerously crazy.  Dangerously crazy and able to obtain horrific firepower to kill real people that stand in for his mental demons.

Flooding the airwaves with speculation about motives and digging up details of how the man prepared for his moment of explosion focuses on the wrong issue.

The reporters and officials who try to normalize the psychotic shield us from the utter horror of the situation: we as a society allow mentally ill people to endanger themselves and other people, to buy heavy weapons, and to kill their neighbors.

There is no legitimate “motive” for the action of the Roseburg shooter, the Sandyhook shooter, the Charleston shooter, the Aurora shooter, …  They are crazy people.

We must identify, house, and treat similar crazy people before they commit their mass murder. And, we must stop those crazy people from obtaining weapons.

We need to spend time developing policies, programs, and laws that support treating crazy people and keeping guns out of their hands.  We don’t need to spend another second trying to divine a rational motive for their acts.

By |2015-10-03T16:45:51-07:00October 3, 2015|philippic|0 Comments
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