Michael Hiltzik: The Bob Lee killing shows how crime reporting gets almost everything wrong
Rushes to judgment seldom come at you any faster than the commentary about the killing of tech entrepreneur Bob Lee in a deserted neighborhood of San Francisco early on the morning of April 4.
The stabbing death of Lee was almost instantaneously taken as confirmation of an emerging narrative about the city — dirty, dangerous, unlivable. Lee's friends and business acquaintances knew whom to blame: San Francisco's liberal politicians.
"Chesa Boudin, & the criminal-loving city council that enabled him & a lawless SF for years, have Bob's literal blood on their hands," tweeted venture investor Matt Ocko, naming the progressive district attorney who was turned out of office in a recall vote last year.
Elon Musk's take on the incident, aimed at Boudin's "tough on crime" successor as D.A., was widely quoted. "Many people I know have been severely assaulted," . "Violent crime in SF is horrific and even if attackers are caught,?"
