By Elina Lingappa
SAN FRANCISCO, CA – Organizers and politicians from Wealth and Disparities in the Black Community and the San Francisco Human Rights Commission gathered on the corner of 3rd and Palou to address concerns around stopping violence in the Black community and the recent upsurge in gun violence in the Bayview-Hunters Point area.
The group said it hoped to address the death of Terry Franklin, Jr., a 40-year-old who was killed in a shooting on the same corner on Feb. 2 of this year—a concerning pattern emerging in 2021.
According to KTVU, over half of the 30 homicides which have occurred in San Francisco thus far in 
2021 have taken place in Bayview-Hunters Point.
In contrast, by this time last year the area had only witnessed two shootings.
According to the SFPD, this upsurge in violence may be due in part to gang retaliation.
Also sponsored by African American Arts and Cultural District, the meeting sought to spark proactive conversation and community healing in the face of gun violence.
San Francisco’s mayor, London Breed, spoke, along with Supervisor Shamann Walton and various community leaders while different city officials and SFPD were also present to engage with community members.
Mayor Breed had a particularly strong and personal speech.
In her call for community support and organizing, she brought up her own family investment in the issue.
“I don’t want money to continue to be…a barrier to opportunity. Tell me why is it that my brother is in jail right now? Why is it that I lost a sister to a drug overdose? Why is it that my cousin Charlie [was] killed in Bayview-Hunters Point by the police?” she asked.
“My point is, they should be here with me too, they should be alive. My cousin and my sister should be alive. Your brother and your cousin and your sister—they should be alive and they should be here with us, and we wouldn’t be here mourning,” the mayor added.
In February, Mayor Breed announced that, over the next two years, she plans to redistribute $120 million from police budgets to Black community support efforts.
In collaboration with District 10 Supervisor Shamann Walton, this initiative includes workforce training, small business support, community health and wellness programs, housing security, juvenile diversion programs, and new culturally affirming spaces.
Even with these funds, Mayor Breed underscored at the event that community action is necessary as well.
“It is time for us to come together like we never came together before,” she closed, adding, “I love my community, I love you guys, and I want you to survive, I want you to thrive. I want you to be lifted up.”
Elina Lingappa is a sophomore at the University of San Francisco double majoring in Sociology and Politics. She is originally from Seattle, Washington, and she is deeply passionate about the spheres of criminal justice and education equity.
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And to think, some claim violent crime is down in S.F. under Boudin. Three months into 2021 San Francisco already has 30 homicides.
Homicides are a small percentage of violent crime.
I wonder if the defunding of the SFPD has helped contribute to the upsurge in homicides so far this year?
Perhaps you can explain what defunding the SFPD looks like and how it has contributed to increases in murders but not violent crime overall or even property crime overall.
I don’t know where you keep getting your rosy SF crime statistics? But everything I’m reading is showing property crime is up as well as homicides.
Where Am I getting the rosy crime stats? The Compstat report which is the crime data directly from the SFPD. You are citing burglary – burglary was up. But that is just one category of crime and like murder, it’s not the largest category. The total part 1 property crime was down. The total part 1 violent crime was also down even though murder was up. You can see the stats in this article: https://davisvanguard.org/2021/03/comparing-sf-and-alameda-calls-into-question-traditional-tough-on-crime-da-policies/
Not to the dead people.
I wonder if Mayor Breed will follow Oakland’s lead and redistribute the money only to poor POC and no poor white people need apply.
Yeah that story blew my mind. Oaktown’s rationale is that people of color – ON AVERAGE – make way less money than people not of color – which is VERY TRUE and a very real disparity in our society. But to have a program that distributes lottery money to 600 lucky winners, but excludes people with light skin tone – well, that’s government-sponsored racism — immoral, illegal, wrong.
Tell the light skinned poor of Oakland that ON AVERAGE people not of color make a lot more money. I’m sure that stat will ring bells of concession to their racial privilege, leading to acknowledgement that the lotto must be rewarded only to the melanin blessed . . . OR in banding together and hiring a lawyer to file a federal class-action lawsuit (anyone from the modern ACLU want to take this one on? Anyone? Hello?)
Yes it’s totally racist and unconstitutional for a government official to institute such a program. Hopefully someone takes that to court but I don’t know if I would rely on the ACLU anymore.
The program in Oakland is really the same concept as “affirmative action”, which usually ends up creating resentment among some group or another which is negatively impacted or left out – and not necessarily “white” people. (A reason that there was widespread rejection of that effort in California.)
Which is different than targeting a geographic area, as this effort does.
I’ve been told (on this very blog) that there’s no difference between communities like this, vs. other communities. And/or, that it’s racist (or “clascist?”) to even think so, or attribute it to any cause other than white supremacy. Or, something like that.
Maybe someone should point that out to this author (and the mayor), as well. 🙂
I was watching Matt Walsh’s video last night, in which he described this as “systemic racism”. If nothing else, I find him amusing. Very dry sense of humor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0zNB3KpaC8
In all seriousness, though – I’m curious as to whether or not increased public investment in such communities has a track record of positive results.
I would think that one thing that has to occur is to eventually get rid of all federal public housing, as it seems to breed dysfunction, and has for decades.
But if displacement occurs, sometimes folks just move somewhere else – without actually being “lifted up”.
You’d think that after decades of dysfunctional communities, something would have changed by now. Maybe it slowly is, as some people escape those communities – and integrate into other communities.
There has been a lot of work and research on ‘Adverse Childhood Experiences‘ (ACEs) and collateral effects in the Bayview-Hunters Point community for maybe a decade or more. I can see that as being important groundwork for providing city/county support.
Wrong word… “maybe”… likely 5 decades, at this point… and, like it or not, the way we raise our kids is greatly influenced by how our parents raised us… I have definitely experienced that as a child, and as a parent… often beneficial, often more like dysfunctional…
Hiram, you make a great point,
Takes a lot of energy to make water go uphill… not just money… somehow, you have to get commitment from parents to put in the effort as well… otherwise, just paying social workers… but it is definitely worth a shot to try to break cycles… and in this case, the cycle has been repeating for many years… many ‘victims’, and I’m only slightly thinking in terms of crime rates… far more complex… and your cite, Hiram, gets to the crux of it.
It will have positive results for those on the receiving end of that $120 million in contracts of fresh government cash 😐
True dat – another government program, meant to ‘help’ 😐
SO, over half of 30 homicides means at least 16, compared to last year of two (2), which is a 700% increase in the homicide rate. I hate to break it two you, but a 10% increase in the homicide rate is a bad, a 50% increase is horrific. I don’t even know a word to describe a 700% increase. But meanwhile, DG argues,
uh huh