As the Biscuit has reported there have been a spate of violent and dangerous cell phone robberies in the neighborhood in the last six months. Cell phone and tablet theft accounts for 50% of all crime reported in the City. There have been 1470 theft incidents in the last year alone.
While the Castro has certainly seen it's (un)fair share of these often violent robberies the neighborhood isn't the epicenter of the crime wave though we are adjacent to two of the more targeted neighborhoods and areas: all along Market Street and The Mission. Other SF neighborhood hot spots for phone theft include the Tenderloin. The Western Addition, Bayview, Chinatown and North Beach. Many times when these stories are retold there's a 'blame the victim' mentality around the incident. Many assume victims are being unaware or mindless of their surroundings. This can be the case in some cases, but, a new interactive map out compiled from the last five months of police data on this crime shows that phone and tablet robbery can happen in wide swathes of the city and in all sorts of circumstances. Taking a look at this map can be frightening when you zoom in on the Castro and other locations and see what type of crime-was a gun or knife used for example-and then remember that for every statistic there's a real person who suffered and been traumatized as a result of that event. At Castro town hall meetings on safety many residents expressed concern that thieves are targeting Castro LGBT citizen's as easy targets for these crimes. Data shows the average victim is in their 20's and the spot where this kind of often violent crime can occur? MUNI bus stops. Well lit, often un-populated later in the evening, bored patrons spend time on their devices passing the time awaiting the next bus only to be targeted by opportunistic thieves.
