Arrest made in SF killing of Bob Lee – alleged killer also worked in tech

Arrest made in SF killing of Bob Lee – alleged killer also worked in tech(missionlocal.org)

909 points by cemerick 3 years ago | 1184 comments

mztwo 3 years ago |

As the news media and twitterverse peddled the whole "crime-ridden SF" angle, I felt myself getting drawn into the same topic and agreeing with numerous friends on how much the city has declined. This is a good reminder of how we gravitate towards powerful emotional narratives, which in the moment can feel absolutely true despite an utter lack of supporting facts on an individual murder case.

I hope this brings some measure of peace and closure for his family and friends.

Convolutional 3 years ago | |

After the murder, I had to read scores of comments like this ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35456168 ) about the homeless, need for more law enforcement (although the US already incarcerates more of its population than any industrialized country) etc.

I had to read scores of tech bros in the professional-managerial class whinge about the poor, about black lives matter and how this was due to "progressivism".

Turns out the suspected murderer is a guy who describes himself as an "entrepreneur" on Linkedin and has a Crunchbase listing where he is described as being in executive management. Maybe we should have law enforcement target entrepreneurs as opposed to people made homeless by the enormous wealth disparity on display in San Francisco.

justizin 3 years ago | | |

I saw a reply to a thread on twitter where a woman said to one of his friends, something like, “sorry to burst your bubble but bob was a champion of ‘diversity’” and if that isn’t saying that quiet part out loud, hoof.

tomcam 3 years ago | | |

> people made homeless by the enormous wealth disparity

There’s a tiny possibility that feckless bureaucrats, billions of dollars spent with no oversight, mental illness, and drug addiction share just a sliver of the responsibility

misssocrates 3 years ago | | |

What percentage are entrepreneurs and what percentage are people with mental health problems and or drug addiction?

palijer 3 years ago | | |

>After the murder, I had to read scores of comments like this[...]

>I had to read scores of tech bros [...]

Did you though? I can't recommend enough cutting out reading people's comments that you don't want to read. If other people's comments stress you out and make you angry, there are typically actions you can take to expose yourself less to them.

hintymad 3 years ago | | |

I can get why people blamed the SF politics but not why people blamed the homeless. Both in my experience and by statistics, homeless are not particularly aggressive or violent. It's unfortunately enough that they became homeless, and violent or aggressive people wouldn't stay homeless for long.

aborsy 3 years ago | | |

That doesn’t change the facts (some of which stated in the post you linked) about the well known problems with homeless in SF.

random314 3 years ago | | |

I had my comment on my family's experience of not experiencing any crime in the bay area in 10+ years downvoted. I was also called a boiling frog.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35451394

Another reply - "I'll have you know, my ivory tower is devoid of any riffraff!"

briantakita 3 years ago | | |

I'm personally not into incarcerating mass amounts of people, as it only centralizes a prison industrial complex. Rather, one glaring issue is dangerous drugs showing up on our streets & the conditions that lead to this usage. In the comment you linked to, I noted Kensington Ave in Philadelphia, where there are videos of many people on hard drugs stooped over. Many people, who would otherwise have happier lives are now dealing with addiction & living on the streets. Note that the reason why drugs are showing up on the streets are not random acts of mere petty criminals but involve people in domestic government & foreign governments. Rick Ross & the crack epidemic detail the history of how intelligence agencies create the conditions of mass addiction.

While some, including me, think this drug problem is an example of the hypocrisy of NeoLiberalism...I also think it's a centuries old playbook of wreaking havoc on whole populations of people by introducing vices such as drugs. The Opium Wars & what lead to the Opium Wars is an example.

Side note, I would like there to be a graph based form of communication that can better express the context of statements. It's too easy to take a couple of sentences on a forum out of context.

asynchronous 3 years ago | |

I don’t understand why it can’t be both: SF is degenerating when it comes to random crime AND this murder wasn’t by some random thug.

I remember reading blog after blog on HN about people moving out of SF specifically for what the city had become.

tsgagnon 3 years ago | | |

I don’t understand why it can’t be both: SF is degenerating when it comes to random crime AND this murder wasn’t by some random thug.

Always important to reflect on whether stances like "SF is degenerating" are based on a rational analysis of what is actually happening, versus a more emotional response to stories that might be more like the topic of this post, just with less visibility into the exact circumstances of what happened.

Not saying that's likely happening here, but the clear response to the original news was that this was the perfect example of what SF is becoming. How often does that assumption happen?

hn_throwaway_99 3 years ago | | |

The issue is not that "it can't be both". I personally think SF does have a serious crime problem that is not being properly addressed.

But all the comments, tweets, etc immediately came out blaming SF government and SF's general crime problem specifically for Bob Lee's death. Like they couldn't just wait a teeny bit before forming an opinion after more facts were known? Especially from the crowd that prides itself on "logic" and "data driven" decisions.

asveikau 3 years ago | | |

The nature of the random crime is very different from violent crime. People were saying violent crime is the issue, and here was the proof, the turning point. All demonstrably false.

You point out the falsity and people call you naive and say it's the crime stats that are wrong, not their take. Their version is reality.

As a San Francisco resident, I don't want us wasting time, energy and resources going after the wrong problems.

virgildotcodes 3 years ago | | |

The linked article specifically shows that violent crime in SF is at an all time low, and lower than most other comparably sized cities.

sshconnection 3 years ago | | |

Love how HN loves data driven analysis, except when analyzing SF violent crime rates.

klyrs 3 years ago | | |

Gravity is a force that attracts two massive objects. While that statement is true, it is completely irrelevant to the Bob Lee case. People using this tragedy as an excuse to flog their favorite scapegoat is disappointing.

welder 3 years ago | | |

Here's a good explanation of why perceived crime increased at the same time as total crime decreased in SF with COVID. TLDR: the number of crimes decreased, but the total number of people out-and-about decreased even more. The result is if you went out-and-about you were more likely to experience a crime.

https://sfstandard.com/perspectives/perspective-why-your-cha...

digitaltrees 3 years ago | | |

Because one topic, homelessness and its contribution to crime is irrelevant to the topic at hand, the tragic murder of a person. Yet there was a rush to link them. Why discuss them together when doing so implies a causal connection between them?

lern_too_spel 3 years ago | | |

It is both, but these are unrelated facts.

PragmaticPulp 3 years ago | |

> This is a good reminder of how we gravitate towards powerful emotional narratives, which in the moment can feel absolutely true despite an utter lack of supporting facts on an individual murder case.

It seems equally weird to me that so many people are taking this anecdote as a sort of proof that San Francisco does not have a crime problem.

Focusing on individual anecdotes and swinging from one conclusion to another is the real problem. The source of this unfortunate murder shouldn’t dictate your entire view of a city’s crime problem.

timmytokyo 3 years ago | | |

Every major city has a crime problem and always has. The question is whether the situation is being blown out of proportion by sensationalist media or people with axes to grind. For a group that claims to be so rational, much of the HN crowd commenting here does seem to be averse to relying upon actual data.

klyrs 3 years ago | |

Ironically, when the killer is alleged to be another tech exec known to the victim, people here still prefer to talk about "crime-ridden SF" instead.

phone8675309 3 years ago | | |

Not surprising. You're on a forum full of techies and tech execs. It's like the people in Hollywood incredulous that #metoo movement was a thing because "they didn't know anyone like that!" until their coworkers and friends were outed.

Same here - techies shocked, _shocked_ that one of "their own" could commit a crime like this. Easier for them to talk about crime in general than lay blame at the feet on one of "their own".

Gigachad 3 years ago | | |

Even the tech bros in SF are violent drug addicted killers

twelve40 3 years ago | | |

both can be true, crazy, right??

kornhole 3 years ago | |

I never believed the original assumption in stories. I am skeptical of what I read. Random murders are very rare. He was running a crypto company. Crypto space has plenty of shady things and people.

Jackpillar 3 years ago | | |

Same. The minute I read he was wandering about at 230am on a weekday I knew something was fishy. Despite how much reactionary tough-on-crime dorks want you to feel - homeless people rarely commit random murders of non homeless people.

Then like you said - the minute I found out he was in crypto I was 100% convinced he was murdered by someone he knew. Not in any conspiracy view like the feds did it because his company was "too dangerous" to FedNow or something. But because a significant portion of people in crypto are unhinged.

bilbo0s 3 years ago | | |

You would think the mass shootings of Asians would have taught us a lesson. But we all continue to jump the gun.

I think more generally, people are mob parrots at heart. We go with the crowd. If we see a guy killed and someone yells, "Crime Wave!!!" Well, then we all start chanting "Crime Wave!!!" The average person, even on HN as we saw, can really not be trusted to give dispassionate analysis. In the vast majority of instances, we just parrot whatever narrative or world view we feel most emotionally comfortable with.

I struggle mightily against it and still fall into that cesspool of intellectual laziness from time to time. It's just human. But you're right. We need to do better.

Much better.

tootie 3 years ago | | |

I got downvoted at the time, but Bob was heavily involved in launching Cash app which was exposed a few weeks ago as having inflated numbers to investors and been grossly negligent in policing their users many of whom were using the platform for crime. It's entirely possible that Lee was either mixed up with bad actors and/or pissed off some bad actors by providing details for the story. Obviously this is speculation too but it seems at least as plausible as it being truly random.

hintymad 3 years ago | |

As much as I don't like SF's progressive politics, the data showed that the recalled SF DA Boudin didn't charge less on murders or narcotics: https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/We-obtained-never-.... Boudin did charge less on theft and burglary.

areoform 3 years ago | |

In the future, it may be helpful to remember that murder and violence — especially sexual violence — are oddly intimate things,

    In 2011, in incidents of murder for which the relationships of murder victims and offenders were known, 54.3 percent were killed by someone they knew (acquaintance, neighbor, friend, boyfriend, etc.); 24.8 percent of victims were slain by family members.  The relationship of murder victims and offenders was unknown in 44.1 percent of murder and nonnegligent manslaughter incidents in 2011.

https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-...

In short, people were killed by strangers 11.7% of the time. For 88.3% of murders (where the relationship between the killer and the victim was known), it was someone the victim knew.

The statistics are similar for sexual violence.

For juveniles and children who experience sexual violence, it is a family member of acquaintance 93% of the time. This percentage drops for adults to ~80%, i.e. in 80% of cases the victim will know the perpetrator.

https://www.rainn.org/statistics/perpetrators-sexual-violenc...

These crimes are very different from a mugging or robbery. It is easy to imagine why if you replay the situation in your mind — looking someone in the eyes as you stab them, up close takes a lot emotionally. It is a very intense situation. Almost everyone — if driven to it — will steal out of desperation and hunger, but very few can look people in the eye, walk up to them and stick a knife in them. There is a strong psychological aversion to hurting other human beings built into most of us and it's what keeps society mostly safe.

kyleashipley 3 years ago | | |

Nit, but I think that 24.8% is a subset of the 54.3%, not additive - i.e. “family members” are included in the category of “people you know.”

(Confirmed with the pie chart in your first link.)

spacemadness 3 years ago | |

Is HN in the twitterverse? Because I sat back and watched people do the same thing here.

phone8675309 3 years ago | | |

It was gross to watch too, and the backpedaling from some now is sad.

mrguyorama 3 years ago | | |

The biggest lie people on HN tell themselves is that they are "special" and not just normal people like the rest of us.

dpedu 3 years ago | |

This is a bad take and itself an emotional narrative. For one, the person arrested is a suspect and not in any way proven or admitted to be the killer. Putting that aside, it's still a bad take because you're ignoring the many other incidents that took place on the same day, such as the SF Fire Commissioner who was beaten with a metal pipe by random drug users outside his house.

anigbrowl 3 years ago | | |

the SF Fire Commissioner who was beaten with a metal pipe by random drug users outside his house

Former fire commissioner, not outside his house (actually a parent's home), and what makes you so sure it was random? A man was arrested for that, who alleges that the victim initiated the confrontation by pepper spraying him. I'm quite interested in that case as I have relevant personal knowledge about people involved, but for that reason I'm reluctant to draw any conclusions about it for now.

kyleblarson 3 years ago | |

Two things can be true at the same time: SF has declined immensely and the killer in this case was not a criminal homeless addict.

7e 3 years ago | |

So, SF isn’t crime ridden now? Did someone not just die? Is murder only a crime when it’s a complete stranger?

smsm42 3 years ago | |

So, the lesson here is not to jump to global far-reaching conclusion based on one single case, and the reason why it is so important is because of this one single case from which we can totally make a global far-reaching conclusions...

maratbn 3 years ago | |

The emotional narrative that was initially gravitated toward is in fact correct.

Had there not been the entrenched environment of lawlessness in SF the perpetrator would not have even attempted his attack. And had the victim not been a prominent person the SF police would not have bothered to keep looking.

The only mistake the murderer made here is he underestimated the public outcry that forced the police and the DA to keep investigating in fear of theirs and the city's reputation.

smrtinsert 3 years ago | |

Is there a word for people who think they're logical but mostly driven by emotion? Like an emotional dk effect?

cocacola1 3 years ago | | |

Rationalist?

1vuio0pswjnm7 3 years ago | |

Maybe it's time to stop paying attention to what Elon Musk and other so-called "tech industry" people publish on the internet. These are not journalists and it is not "news". It's garbage.

Maybe it's time to wake up.

One can only imagine what these two "tech industry" people were arguing about before one killed the other. The media reports make them sound like such wonderfully nice people, drinking and driving around SF at 2am on a Tuesday, one of them liking stay out to the wee hours on weeknights the other liking to keep butterfly and switch blades in his car. One of them apparently believed an "emotional narrative" about SF being in decline; that's allegedly why he moved to Miami.

Here is the Expand IT Inc. website, listing the survivor's colleagues.

https://web.archive.org/web/20230413142515if_/https://www.ex...

All these references to "Cash App" in the articles about this crime yet none explaining its main use has been amongst criminals.

1vuio0pswjnm7 3 years ago | | |

Correction: It was a Monday night.

It's doubtful moving to Miami could have much to do with safety as Miami has higher crime rates than SF. More likely the reason was political.

danso 3 years ago |

The SF-is-a-hellhole narrative is compelling, but the report that Lee was not the victim of a random crime shouldn't have been surprising. The FBI says 40+% of murders are committed by a family member or acquaintance, and 10% by total strangers:

https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-...

j4pe 3 years ago |

Joe Eskenazi, the author of this piece, is a solid journalist who helps run the tiny donation-funded Mission Local. They've done incredible reporting on corruption in the SF city government and punch way above their weight in the stories they break. I have respect for how Joe refused to join in reporting this murder as evidence of a violent crime epidemic, while still reporting on homelessness and property crime.

dmode 3 years ago |

Am I the only one who does NOT feel unsafe in SF at all ? I mean, I choose not to walk in TL and SOMA at night. But why would anyone feel unsafe in North Beach, Marina, Russian Hill, Richmond, Sunset, GG park, Lower Haight, Valencia etc. I have spent many nights walking in Valencia and took Uber home at 2am. Doesn't feel remotely unsafe.

jb3689 3 years ago |

It’s pretty incredible to me that the whole community on the last thread was fixated on the fact that it must’ve been the homeless/drug addicts. What kind of place is it where you immediately dismiss premeditated murder, or even throw it up as 50-50?

jmacd 3 years ago |

I have a family member who is a police officer (investigator) in another country. I was telling them about this killing and how crazy things seemed in San Francisco during my last visit.

His first and only response was "well, how do you know that's even related? Most people get killed by somebody they know." and I was like "well, yeah, but San Francisco is bad right now" and the conversation moved on.

azinman2 3 years ago | |

It’s unclear from your anecdote if you either learned anything or came back to the conversation saying your family member’s hunch was right.

orsenthil 3 years ago | | |

The implication here seems 'an expert' had a right intuition and disputed a widely believed initial claim.

woodruffw 3 years ago |

This is shocking and saddening, and should also be a lesson to this community: previous threads on this tragedy immediately jumped to blaming the homeless, when the overwhelming majority of violent crimes are committed by individuals known to the victim.

Edit: Added "violent," to preempt diversions about non-violent crimes.

whatshisface 3 years ago | |

Look, this might be an unnecessary comment but...

This suspect is innocent until proven guilty and we will all still be here when the trial finishes. There is no reason to rush out to come up with a viewpoint that might be shown false with later revelations. If we've learned something from the people who jumped straight to total confidence that it was caused by homelessness, then let's apply it.

woodruffw 3 years ago | | |

The suspect is indeed innocent until proven guilty. I haven't advanced any claim that this particular suspect is the perpetrator; only that violent crimes are overwhelmingly committed by people known to their victims.

I hope that we can extend the same fundamental legal skepticism to society's most needy.

hbarka 3 years ago | |

This doesn't mean San Francisco is exonerated from being a crime-laden city. It's an inconvenient truth but car break-ins, looting of retail shops, open air drug markets, unhygienic streets, and rampant homelessness are worse than ever.

anonkogudhyfhhf 3 years ago |

I know in the last thread everyone said he was a hero. But I looked at his bio and his last job was a token selling scam. Maybe he made some enemies

spaceman_2020 3 years ago | |

It's not in the tech circle news, but this murder happened literally days after Hindenburg Research released a very long article on money laundering and widespread fraud at Block (CashApp's parent company). Apparently the app is widely used to launder drug money.

Not saying that's related, but you would have to investigate that angle in a murder.

dkn775 3 years ago | | |

Wow that article is very detailed and there is tons of exploitative practices

https://hindenburgresearch.com/block/

bombcar 3 years ago | |

I've always thought Marc Antony's speech was bullshit - "The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interrèd with their bones."

It's way more common to ignore/forget/never mention again anything bad someone who died did.

Also the crypto world seems to be getting a bit stabby in various ways, as things come crashing down there may be repercussions. Unlikely in this case, probably. Much more likely to be domestic of some sort.

nvader 3 years ago | | |

And the way he said he came to bury Caesar instead of praise him? But he didn't even bring a shovel...

emmelaich 3 years ago | | |

Deliberate bullshit, knowing the context of that speech and how he follows it.

hindsightbias 3 years ago | |

He supposedly left SF because it was unsafe and people assumed he meant “those people”.

shadowgovt 3 years ago |

People don't talk often about it, but there's quite a bit of crime (including violent crime) that goes on in the Bay's big-money sector. I guess this shouldn't be surprising (power corrupts), but it sure does seem like people feel uncomfortable talking about how many tech execs end up poisoned by heroin from a prostitute or under investigation for a 30-year-old murder or dead in a workplace shooting.

okdood64 3 years ago | |

> sure does seem like people feel uncomfortable talking about how many tech execs end up poisoned by heroin from a prostitute

Source?

faanghacker 3 years ago | | |

https://www.ksbw.com/article/alix-tichelman-indicted-for-2nd...

rising-sky 3 years ago |

> San Francisco is home to much in the way of visible public misery, unnerving street behavior and overt drug-use. Its property crime rate has long been high, and the police clearance rate for property crimes has long been minimal. But the city’s violent crime rate is at a near-historic low and is lower than that in most mid-to-large-sized cities.

asdfman123 3 years ago |

I knew this wasn’t a “random occurrence” due to drugs and homelessness. People almost never stab each other for no reason.

But when I suggested it in an earlier thread I was criticized and downvoted for “spreading conspiracy theories.”

I know we shouldn’t speculate but everyone else was speculating that it was random!

curo 3 years ago |

Is the "Expand IT, Inc" on the LinkedIn profile the only evidence that the "alleged killer also works in tech and is a man Lee purportedly knew."

There's comments is this thread of amazing journalism but the LLC shows as inactive on the Division of CA website (entity 201008110204) and the Expand IT website itself is dead. For all we know, this is a Lyft or Uber driver. Unless I'm missing some SFPD statement known to the journalist?

EDIT: got an old filling; see njstraub608's comment. My mistake

AlwaysRock 3 years ago | |

Doing a little research myself shows that he was test savey enough to know to get privacy on his, expired, website, was endorsed on LinkedIn for Cloud Computing, Virtualization by other Tech CEOs and Staff Architects, gave recommendations on LinkedIn for architects (including one at AWS) who display those recommendations on LI and say that they were clients of his, at one point was hiring for hiring for front end engineers, was keeping up to date on OS updates as far back as windows 8/9, and he clearly knows the lingo of IT.

Could it be an uber driver or lyft driver? Sure. But it seems like someone who has run a consulting business for many years in the tech space.

bparsons 3 years ago |

This article contains stats that are pretty shocking and contrary to the overwhelming narrative coming out of the SF tech community.

https://missionlocal.org/2023/04/bob-lee-killing-arrest-made...

The murder rate in San Francisco is preposterously low.

JeremyNT 3 years ago | |

SF is safer than many of its peers, but some people seem to really want to paint the city as a failure. "Rampant crime" is one obvious way to do that. Over time the narrative leaks into the broader consciousness.

Chicago deals with the same.

I feel pretty confident that some of this is astroturfing from people with political ideologies trying to score points on blue states, but it seems to be quite effective however it is accomplished. People can be quick to scare, and appeals to their sense of personal safety are quite powerful.

bparsons 3 years ago | | |

People are conflating street homelessness with crime. Seeing homeless people in their neighborhood makes people feel guilty and uncomfortable, so they demand that the police remove them from public view.

Because there is no coherent strategy to deal with housing in North America, this will continue to get worse. For whatever reason, reactionary public opinion is fine spending inordinate sums of money on policing, but freaks out when it is directed toward public housing, which in the long term is a much cheaper solution.

PaulWaldman 3 years ago |

It sounds like this information wasn't released publicly by the local authorities.

The article has a link to a LinkedIn profile. The writer indicates that the name and city of the LI profile matches the information on the person they were "told" was arrested this morning. Even the name of the company of the person indicated is explicitly referenced in the article.

My professional world doesn't allow for ambiguity. As a journalist, how sure do you need to be about the accuracy of this information before going public?

chaps 3 years ago | |

You'd be surprised what information is released to the public. I'd be willing to bet that the reporter has access to dispatch logs from over-the-air radio [1] and cross-references that with incident reports at [2] and then does a lookup on [3]. Entirely speculation, but it's not implausible.

[1] https://somafm.com/scanner/ [2] https://data.sfgov.org/Public-Safety/Police-Department-Incid... [3] https://www.sfsheriff.com/find-person-jail

PaulWaldman 3 years ago | | |

Absolutely, there are many data sources available so piece some of this together.

What I find interesting is indicating a LinkedIn profile, unless of course this reporter has access to investigation documents that also identify the LinkedIn profile.

It could very well be a different person with the same name in the same town. Why take the risk? Just so you can have the juicy headline "alleged killer also worked in tech."

diebeforei485 3 years ago | | |

Dispatch radio is encrypted, as is made clear in your own link.

dj_gitmo 3 years ago |

This is perfect for a "ripped from the headlines" episode of Law and Order. They basically already did one like this https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Recap/LawAndOrderS14E... The second act could hang on a chorus of techie bum-haters.

jakeinspace 3 years ago |

I haven’t been to SF in 10+ years, but I grew up in a (more) dangerous American city. I’m curious how much of the panic over public safety in the Bay Area is massively skewed by upper middle class immigrants (from safer suburban America, or from other countries) getting their first taste of American urban life. I don’t want to sound too dismissive, American cities are really dangerous and impoverished compared to what they should be, but is SF really that bad compared to comparable American cities?

juliusgeo 3 years ago | |

I have only lived for extensive periods of time in two cities: SF (2 years about) and Philadelphia (4 years). The biggest difference between them is that even in some of the worst areas of Philadelphia in terms of drug crime, there were far fewer people actively dealing or doing drugs on the streets in large groups. It was more spread out—there were issues in all areas of the city, but there was no area with the sheer concentration of say the Tenderloin or SOMA. There were basically no differences in terms of the transit systems—I don’t think BART or MUNI are any worse than SEPTA.

nemothekid 3 years ago | | |

I think that has more to do with housing than anything. Most drug addicts would probably prefer to get high in the comfort of their own home.

acchow 3 years ago | |

SF also attracts plenty of educated immigrants from other countries, many of which have safer cities (think Canada, Europe, Australia, etc)

danso 3 years ago |

People were so quick to assume the nature of the crime even when no info about a possible suspect had been publicly released. Check the quote tweets to Bob's 2019 tweet about "recognize that your black friends face challenges you don’t"

https://www.twitter.com/crazybob/status/1181668744247930880/...

kenjackson 3 years ago | |

The comments on that tweet are sickening. And people will say with a straight face that there are no more race problems in this country except wokeism.

macNchz 3 years ago | | |

Once again thankful to Elon Musk for giving me the push I needed to stop logging on to Twitter.

geebee 3 years ago | | |

Yes, there are a lot of people who will say that. They provide a living, walking straw man, and there are enough of them that I can't say you're cherry picking. As for the tweet, I can't see any reason I'd start reading twitter now, I've been long disgusted with the quality of discourse on twitter.

But if you decide to dismiss the concerns about the excesses of the far left by pointing to racist responses to a tweet somewhere, you aren't being honest about a real problem.

I avoid the term "woke", but when James Carville (famous democratic strategist) said "wokeness is a problem and everyone knows it" (in regards to the far left harming mainstream democrats in elections), I'm not sitting around scratching my head bewildered as to what he's talking about.

carrja99 3 years ago | |

Shit, I wish I hadn't read those. I didn't need that today.

f38zf5vdt 3 years ago | | |

I would recommend just never going on Twitter, for any reason. People are less racist on 4chan these days.

dawatchusay 3 years ago | |

This made my heart sink

nolawi89 3 years ago | |

do you see all the racist replies..

eftychis 3 years ago |

As the old "joke" goes it is always the butler, the business partner or the spouse.

Anyways, really sad story, that touched a lot of us close to home. (We still don't know what happened, these are still allegations.)

P.S. The other sad part for me was that passersby sped away instead of helping immediately. Moments count in these cases.

nullc 3 years ago |

One of the first things I said when I heard about this was: "Gee, there certainly has been an unexpected number of stabbings around mobilecoin. I wonder if this has something to do with the billion dollars stolen from FTX by someone seemingly connected with mobilecoin." -- but at a glance I'm not seeing a connection with the person they arrested. Interesting.

I had family ask me about it, concerned for my welfare, and I told them I was confused why this was getting national media coverage other violent crimes in SF hadn't received, and mentioned my initial thoughts that it might have been motivate by sketchy cryptocurrency crap.

Yet when I saw the popular narrative that it was some random stabbing in SF I didn't really have a reason to doubt it: I've personally been chased by a crazy person with a knife in the city.

olalonde 3 years ago | |

Which other stabbings are you referring to?

nullc 3 years ago | | |

Ah, apparently it was a strangulation rather than a stabbing! I'll refrain from repeating the accused's name here because I see now that the charges were dropped -- but it was on HN before and left an impression on me: maybe I'm old fashioned but I usually expect the number of assaults, attempted murders, or murders connected with a project team to be zero.

firstSpeaker 3 years ago |

My first travel to SF was in 2010 and last one in 2018. In the 2018 trip I wasn't comfortable walking in the market street to get back to my hotel in the evening (I was staying in Hyatt Regency). Maybe I got older and more fearful for my safety, but that is a personal experience I have with SF.

SaintSeiya 3 years ago |

And everyone (especially here) blaming the homeless and mentally ill people abandoned by the system. The homeless-phobia of white collar individuals is the problem.

phone8675309 3 years ago | |

A lot of that homeless-phobia is the fact that most white collar individuals are closer to living paycheck to paycheck than they're willing to let on. They're afraid of the homeless and see themselves distinct from them because "those lazy bums lost their jobs" and "I have to keep working so I don't end up like them". It's classic class warfare (fomented from the top) as a way for those at the top to end up with obedient workers who do not want to rock the boat for fear of the consequences.

xivzgrev 3 years ago |

I wondered if the killer knew him. That area of city is not a sketchy one, and while random violence can happen anywhere it just seemed unlikely, esp given descriptions that he would be unlikely to resist a mugging (and provoke an escalation).

Glad they got their man!

kaycebasques 3 years ago | |

He is not their man yet. Innocent until proven guilty. The word "alleged" is important here. In Journalism 101 they teach you to be very careful when talking about suspected criminals. You don't want to portray someone as guilty until that has been proven in court.

clint 3 years ago | | |

They literally have video of the dude stabbing him

honkycat 3 years ago | | |

While true, often they won't arrest you unless they have something to charge you with and some amount of evidence.

eclipxe 3 years ago | |

From the article - they were driving together and Lee got out after an argument.

graderjs 3 years ago | |

The article says they were driving together in the same car, before a dispute ensued, which resulted in Lee being stabbed by Momeni.

nier 3 years ago |

Is it common for police to release so much personal information on a suspect?

The linked article contains the full name, age, and city of residency.

majormajor 3 years ago | |

Look at it this way: do you want police not disclosing who they arrest?

Name, age, city is pretty common; especially name and age of someone arrested. I'd imagine it public records.

Some quick googling for recent examples. I just looked for news articles, not sure what if the police release has more residency info on the ones that aren't listed in the articles.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-02-17/suspect-... - name and age

https://www.fox32chicago.com/news/2-chicago-men-charged-in-d... - names, ages, city

https://apnews.com/article/entertainment-music-shootings-arr... - name and age

A4ET8a8uTh0 3 years ago | | |

That and I am sure there is a PR aspect to it and putting local populace at ease.

prawn 3 years ago | |

I've seen an article about this suspect that includes their address, what they paid for the house, other places they've lived, etc. Different to police releasing information though.

Retric 3 years ago | | |

Yea, a great deal of information is available to the public once you have their name and city. Which isn’t really a new thing, many phone books used to include peoples address alongside their names and phone numbers.

mixdup 3 years ago | |

Yes, almost always. That information is public record and part of the arrest record

jongjong 3 years ago | |

I thought the same thing. Seems out of place how they mention such details about his address. He is obviously being doxxed.

umeshunni 3 years ago | |

It's BuzzFeed, what do you expect?

And no, BuzzFeed News is as trash as BuzzFeed.

nova22033 3 years ago |

Both things can be true.

Bob Lee's murder wasn't a random crime. Crime is out of control in SF

squokko 3 years ago |

I was suspicious of the "homeless killer" narrative because I worked in that neighbhorhood for a long time and there were no homeless people anywhere near there. Also, I've walked past many of the SF drug-addled homeless and none of them seemed physically robust enough to stab anyone other than another drug-addled homeless person. (the non-drug homeless around the Haight and those areas are completely different and extremely scary sometimes)

1attice 3 years ago |

I do hope that someone notices how violent and dangerous these "tech professionals" are who have moved into our formerly peaceful neighbourhoods.

throwaway5752 3 years ago |

To their credit Buzzfeed mentions this, but Mission Local appears to have broken this story: https://missionlocal.org/2023/04/bob-lee-killing-arrest-made...

pyuser583 3 years ago |

Not at all surprised. People are usually murdered by people they know.

Even in SF, murders by strangers are really, really rare.

tinglymintyfrsh 3 years ago |

I recall a sad point to this case captured on surveillance video:

As Bob Lee was bleeding out, he went to driver for aid who ignored him and fled the scene. Shouldn't they be arrested and charged for failure to render aid? Perhaps he would've had a chance if he had arrived at a trauma ER but it's now an unknowable.

emodendroket 3 years ago | |

I don't think you have a duty to render aid, and it's hard to blame someone not wanting to get involved in a stabbing.

addisonl 3 years ago | |

Not a legal requirement in this country.

johnea 3 years ago |

Yep, just more proof that San Fransisco is overrun with the criminal wealthy...

rasengan 3 years ago |

Did they confirm their relationship? Could he have been an Uber driver?

dbg31415 3 years ago |

It did strike me as really odd a 43 year-old man would be out walking around at 2:30 AM...

It'll be interesting when more details come out.

All the "SF is going downhill!" stuff that came out... seems pretty irrelevant given this wasn't a random act of violence.

maratbn 3 years ago | |

Bars close at 2 am

dntrkv 3 years ago | | |

There are a few spots in soma open way later than that.

antidaily 3 years ago |

RIP crazybob. And condolences to his family.

vegancap 3 years ago |

As if they posted a link to his LinkedIn...

yardie 3 years ago |

Watch how fast this falls out of the news cycle because it doesn’t align with America’s view of San Francisco. So far I’ve heard it was: a homeless person, a junkie, mentally ill, violent criminal common to San Francisco.

Part of me felt this was personal. A stabbing you have to get fairly close. Bob Lee could know his killer. And I don’t know him well enough to know who he hung out with.

IndoorPatio 3 years ago | |

Statistically, it was always more likely someone he knew.

yardie 3 years ago | | |

If you saw last weeks comments you would think it was a homeless, drug crazed, criminal. One of the tops comments stated, with authority, it was someone homeless. And how the cops were not going to do anything about it.

bombcar 3 years ago | | |

There were 40k suicides in the USA in 2020, and about 20k murders. So statistically, if you die by violence, you killed yourself.

sharemywin 3 years ago | |

just to be fair "mentally ill" and "in tech" don't have to be mutually exclusive.

BurningFrog 3 years ago | | |

I have no evidence beyond gut feel, but I think the tech population is probably above average in mental illness.

zapdrive 3 years ago | |

Unless a pic comes out of Momeni (the alleged stabber) dressed in drag, then this news will drag out for a long time, pun intended.

dang 3 years ago | | |

Please don't take HN threads into ideological flamewar hell. It's the opposite of what this site is supposed to be for.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

drewcoo 3 years ago |

I was really betting that HN comments would all be Mission homeless complaining about how dangerous the city is with all of those ultraviolent tech bros in it.

Terrible prediction. This is why I never gamble.

1vuio0pswjnm7 3 years ago |

More on MobileCoin:

https://www.wired.com/story/signal-mobilecoin-payments-messa...

https://www.wired.com/story/mobilecoin-cryptocurrency/

SyzygistSix 3 years ago |

Another Vim versus Emacs dispute?

vlovich123 3 years ago |

I’m kind of annoyed at people who automatically assume that homeless commit more crimes. Is there any stats to suggest that they commit more crimes than homed people? Sure, maybe they do some petty theft (I don’t know - is there any research). Maybe. I imagine most of it is in stores and not mugging people or crimes of opportunity. Most of them are just really down on their luck for whatever reason and can’t find their way out. There’s this narrative that forms, explicitly or implicitly, that these people are in that situation because they deserve to be. The drug problem they have is the cause of their homelessness (despite all the research repeatedly showing that giving people housing they can count on and a good support system is the best way to get then rehabilitated).

We find the crime narrative so appealing though. It’s those dirty homeless. That’s why crime has gone up (homicides in SF at historic lows). And it’s exceedingly hard to overcome emotionally. I get it. But HN is supposed to be a logical community, not one where emotions are allowed to run rampant.

When I walked up to my car with broken windows, my initial reaction was to blame the homeless guy next to our on the street. But realistically, who would stay by the site of a crime? Maybe that’s what he wanted me to think, but seems unlikely and he was very afraid I’d tear into him about it because that’s probably happened to him more than once in the past. They know how other people look at them and that takes a serious mental toll on you. How could it not if the vast majority of people around you treat you like shit. I had to remember that the factual reporting on the topic seems to point that SF’s car breakins problem is an organized crime. A crime ring the SF police can’t or won’t get a handle on. Maybe an explicit deal to keep homicide rates low? It came out Toronto police had been doing that and following that violent crimes started going up quite rapidly. Drug dealers and organized crime organizations aren’t sleeping on the streets. Heck, I’m pretty sure one tried to approach me to be a mule and he was dressed upscale and definitely not homeless. Most violence is reliably either someone you know or more organized crime (eg gang initiations).

Sure. SF does have a really bad homeless problem. And they do cause problems but it’s mostly around there being messes everywhere which is unpleasant and is uncomfortable being around unpredictable people with mental illnesses. But I wouldn’t want to be in their shoes mostly because of how society treats them, so I at least try to have some compassion and engage with them from time to time. I know how to distinguish discomfort from feeling unsafe. I know logically and factually even crazy people walking around on the street are not going to turn into a problem (I’m surrounded by them daily in the part of the city I live). But it’s still uncomfortable to be around and even my dog is wary of people like that which speaks to the base lizard brain reacting. I accept that’s my reaction but it fundamentally is not the other person’s problem. I’m responsible for my reaction to uncomfortable feelings.

That’s why I made the comment I did here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35448899&p=8#35454676. I’m not surprised I was right. I’m sad at how strong and prevalent the “it’s gotta be the homeless” crowd was, facts be dammed.

People really need to understand homelessness and react to it with compassion rather than treating it like a dirty thing they might infect you with if they come near and the source of societies problems. Homelessness is ultimately a reflection of the failing of our society, not a reflection of the failings of the individuals impacted by it.

PS: the homeless don’t get any protection on the streets from the police. Most homeless crime is homeless on homeless because the police refuse to keep them safe or because the homeless district the police / governments due to repeated cycles of abuse and victimization. Not sure what the story is in SF per se, but I can’t imagine that part is better.

cemerick 3 years ago |

This news really highlights the confirmation bias that was in full bloom throughout the "discourse" around the initial reports of Lee's murder (e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35448899). Everyone is so quick to jump on negative news about the rare violent crime in e.g. SF thanks to feelings about petty property crime that it's obviously impossible to have any kind of fact-based dialogue about policy.

Worth keeping in mind next time something comes along that might confirm your priors.

(Edit: notable that the thread linked above had _2600+_ comments on it, most of them hysterical about SF crime [of course, completely divorced from actual stats, i.e. that SF has fewer homicides per capita than almost every other American city, including current faves Austin and Miami]. I wonder how likely it is that the same population will comment here to say, "I was wrong"? )

jzellis 3 years ago |

When I moved to SF in 1996, the murder count that year was 86. Last year it was 56. I haven't been back in a very long time, but I guarantee you it's a far safer city than it was back then. I lived on Market between 6th and 7th and had knives pulled on me, and watched a car get blown up across the street underneath Hollywood Billiards, which is long gone now - according to Google Maps, they're building new apartments there.

I loved the Tenderloin back then, even though it was terrifying. It was full of weirdos and loonies and junkies and poverty stricken artsy types like me, who had no power or desire in gentrification - we were just poor too. But we embraced where we were and didn't try to change it. The loin changed me far more than my presence changed it - for the better. It taught me compassion and empathy and how to avoid getting knifed by a junkie in the alleyway.

Y'all colonized the poorest parts of the city and gave the poorest folks nowhere to go, and you still complain when they dare to pop up where you are. I hope all that authenticity and exposed brick in your offices and apartments are worth it.

curo 3 years ago |

> The alleged killer also works in tech and is a man Lee purportedly knew.

I commented below but the IT consulting LLC in the bio is inactive (both in the division of corp website and online). Is that the only evidence here for the statement above?

ryanwaggoner 3 years ago | |

You might want to start by reading the story before you try and dismantle it. A few paragraphs later:

Rather, Lee and Momeni were portrayed by police as being familiar with one another. In the wee hours of April 4, they were purportedly driving together through downtown San Francisco in a car registered to the suspect.

curo 3 years ago | | |

I'd love a link to the SFPD statement if you have it (I cannot find it)

nkingsy 3 years ago | |

"In the wee hours of April 4, they were purportedly driving together through downtown San Francisco in a car registered to the suspect."

This is from "multiple police sources" from the article.

dang 3 years ago | |

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35555859.

etc-hosts 3 years ago |

https://www.linkedin.com/in/nmomeni

pxeger1 3 years ago | |

I've never seen a comment on HN redacted before. What does this mean?

dang 3 years ago | | |

Mods sometimes put "[redacted]" in a comment when we're taking out personally identifiable information, such as doxing or when a user asks us to edit out their name or email address after the fact.

In this case the GP contained a link to the suspect's linkedin page.

Edit: after thinking about it, I think we probably don't need to redact. If it were a random person caught up in the story it would be different, but once a person has been arrested for a crime they arguably become a public figure, even though innocent-until-proven-guilty is fortunately a thing.

It's a borderline case and I'm not sure, but anyway have restored the original comment for now.

Edit 2: plus the same link appears in the article itself.

stfutechbros 3 years ago |

I wonder if we will get apologies from the people who used this to justify spreading horribly malicious rhetoric toward homeless people.

dang 3 years ago | |

Trollish usernames, which yours unfortunately is, are not allowed on HN because they subtly troll every thread they post to. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...

If you want to rename your account, we can do that, but in the meantime I've banned this one.

Also, please don't use HN for ideological or political battle—it's against HN's rules: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

medellin 3 years ago |

SF out here trying to cosplay gotham

jjcon 3 years ago |

> San Francisco authorities hit back at Elon Musk and others who had used Lee’s killing to criticize law enforcement in the city.

Tagline is kinda weird... isn't murder kinda indicative of a law enforcement failure?

bandyaboot 3 years ago | |

I suppose this was a case of a failure of law enforcement insomuch as the SFPD has failed to find/hire a trio of precogs.

jjcon 3 years ago | | |

You think precogs are required for any level of crime prevention? No wonder people are fleeing SF

gowld 3 years ago | |

No. Law enforcement's job is to arrest and punish murderers, not prevent murders.

jjcon 3 years ago | | |

You can't possibly be serious, right? So what is the point of police patrol? Adjusting police presence in different areas? Community initiatives? Prevention is definitively a key component of modern policing at least in every city and country I have lived in.

If that isn't the case in SF I'd say then that they have obviously failed on all levels at enforcing the law. Not to mention, punishment is definitely not the job of law enforcement.

A4ET8a8uTh0 3 years ago | | |

Yes and no. Law enforcement's job is in its name. It is to enforce. It is to be the visible arm of otherwise ephemeral law that we agreed upon as society through, hopefully, some sort of consensus. And yes, their presence also serves that purpose, but they are not there to punish ( although I am sure we are all tempted to tip scales at times ). That job is typically the domain of another public institution.

sct202 3 years ago |

[deleted]

GravitasFailure 3 years ago | |

Crossing "T"s, dotting the "I"s. For a case this high profile it definitely pays to be diligent. It'll be interesting to see exactly what the evidence is and how the investigation unfolded.

kranke155 3 years ago | |

Investigating ?

h2odragon 3 years ago | |

It does seem a little off that a perpetrator of such a crime wouldn't run, either. Either go straight to the police with "it was self defense" or get the hell out of the country.

joeblubaugh 3 years ago |

[flagged]

dang 3 years ago | |

Please don't take HN threads into ideological flamewar.

I realize this topic has been fraught with it from the beginning, but even by that relative standard the comment was particularly bad.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

formvoltron 3 years ago |

Wow this is crazy. Now I feel like I don't need to know anything more. He was an awesome programmer and an awesome guy. I think we can just leave it there, no?

say_it_as_it_is 3 years ago |

Allegedly killed someone, but let's share his identity with everyone anyway! Who cares if we're wrong in the end, right? What kind of impact could that possibly have?

curiousbean 3 years ago |

First off-- Nima is a person of interest. It doesn't mean he's guilty of anything. Even if they were in a car together, argued and Bob left the car and walked it doesn't mean Nima killed the man.

I assume (and hope) the police have more solid evidence like a fingerprint on that knife or Nima's own blood/DNA at the scene or on the knife as is common with stabbings.

rafram 3 years ago | |

He is in SF county jail, booked on suspicion of murder: https://www.sfsheriff.com/find-person-jail

You cease to be "a person of interest" and become the suspect right about when the cops drive across the Bay Bridge to pick you up and bring you to jail.

yellow_lead 3 years ago | |

Person of interest? There is a difference between that and having a warrant out. He is wanted for arrest - he's the alleged killer, not just a POI.

> We are told that police today were dispatched to Emeryville with a warrant to arrest a man named Nima Momeni.

AbsoluteCabbage 3 years ago |

Capital punishment is the only sane solution.

When you put a violent criminal to death, the crime rate is permanently and instantly lowered. If you lock them in a cage for 20 years we all pay the bills and they end up coming out and murdering again on the first day out. Total insanity.

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3 years ago | |

> [death penalty or ultimately useless imprisonment]

This is known as a false dichotomy. Perhaps, instead, we can think of other things which are more agreeable than either of these.

confidantlake 3 years ago | |

Yeah which is why Iran and North Korea are beacons of safety and Iceland is a hellhole. /s

AraceliHarker 3 years ago |

Wasn’t it a common perception among San Francisco residents that the security in San Francisco was getting worse, as shown by the testimony of Jake Shields, a friend of Bob Lee, who said that his girlfriend was attacked by a robber, even though it was a coincidence that the one who killed Bob Lee was an acquaintance? Besides, didn’t Bob Lee himself move to Miami because of the bad security in San Francisco?

jjulius 3 years ago | |

>Besides, didn’t Bob Lee himself move to Miami because of the bad security in San Francisco?

No:

>But Krista Lee emphasized that her ex-husband, with whom they have two children, loved San Francisco and moved to Florida to live with his father after his mom died, not because he was scared to live in the city.

https://www.ktvu.com/news/emeryville-man-arrested-in-connect...

sonotathrowaway 3 years ago | |

I wouldn’t count on a hardcore maga ideologue to give truthful testimony about anything, much less the crime in a liberal city.

He’s more likely to say this was a coverup by the deep state than admit it wasn’t a random crime.

joering2 3 years ago |

"Help!" he shouted, according to a local report. "Someone stabbed me." [1]

He was in the car with suspect yet he says "someone stabbed me" ??

https://www.foxnews.com/us/cash-app-founder-bob-lee-died-ple...

edit: it still doesn't make sense to me. If someone I know stabs me and I assume I have few minutes to live and call 911, I would say "help, Joe Doe stabbed me". I wouldn't say "someone", because that implies a stranger.

bombcar 3 years ago | |

People writing the name of their murderer in blood on the floor is a murder-mystery staple; it is not real life.

In real life you're in shock and what you do is completely disconnected from what you think you would do. The "watch people die" video collections show that, someone can be obviously dying (massive gunshot wounds, etc) and they carry on like nothing happened until they fall over dead.

joering2 3 years ago | | |

I don't think you ever been shot at, had you? I had, and being in shock first thing I did when called 911 was shouting the name of perpetrator for close to a minute, before I realized they already know who may have killed me, and now its actually time to tell them what's happening with me.

Again, it doesn't seem normal to say "someone shot me", if you know WHO shot you.

sangnoir 3 years ago | |

Perhaps communicating that they were stabbed was much more critical at the time than who stabbed them as it was a medical emergency.

deanCommie 3 years ago | |

Hes not saying "I would like to report a murder and tell you who did it, their full name, and social security number"

He's reporting his status and begging for help. He's thinking about survival.

What do you expect to have said in his situation?

joering2 3 years ago | | |

I was screaming the name of person that shot me, thinking if its the last thing I say, at least this son of a bitch will spend life in prison for it.

sowbug 3 years ago | |

Your assumption is wrong. He assumed he was going to live, not die.