Why stop at the right to bare arms?
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I walk around downtown SF daily and I’ve never seen anybody waving a gun, the only full naked people I’ve seen have been in the Castro posing for artists. Regardless, this is not a San Francisco story.
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From the video it looks like the event technically happened in Oakland, but I guess it doesn’t really matter where it was exactly — nobody’s going to blame the Metropolitan Transportation Commission for anything except maybe the cops not showing up fast enough
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So you documented this serious danger to self and others, called 911 and nothing happened?
They are generally quite responsive. There are something like 14,000 5150 holds made in San Francisco every year.
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I consider a half naked man wrapped in a blanket walking in traffic while screaming to be a danger to himself, and perhaps others. Also a man shitting in a milk crate in the middle of an intersection, which I saw this morning.
But you’re right, I didn’t call 911. Perhaps I should have. I didn’t, because I expect that what would have happened is the police would have shown up and asked the people if they needed help. And if no specific request for help besides food or shelter is received, and no actual physical attack move is made, the police seem most likely to file a report and move on.
This is because, from what I know of California law since the efforts of St. Reagan as governor (and others before and after), these actions don’t seem to fit legal definitions of danger that require someone be committed. And for some reason - rules for committing people can be misapplied. It’s just that no rules and thus no action isn’t a good solution either.
Nor do there seem to be the resources to help people heal as much as possible once they’re committed. Which is a separate problem that also needs addressing.
I walk around downtown SF daily and I’ve never seen anybody waving a gun,
And you have never seen unbalanced strangers on the street being aggressive or threatening to others?
Perhaps you should try walking around Civic Center after 6pm.
the only full naked people I’ve seen have been in the Castro posing for artists.
OK. Also “fully naked” is a pretty specific bar. How many clearly unbalanced people have you seen pissing, shitting, waving their genitalia?
You’re free to have your own opinion of course. I see this as a problem.
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… “solving the problem” for 72 hours at a time 
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“Buns and guns.”
Best line ever.
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I think I saw a tattoo saying “I am the NRA”.
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California’s laws about committing people isn’t because of Reagan. It’s because the Supreme Court ruling O’Connor v. Donaldson.
You can not commit an individual against their will if they are not posing a danger to self or others and capable of living without state supervision. This is true not just in California, but every other state as well.
I assure you that if you document a clear threat of serious physical harm to self or others by someone and call 911, someone will do something. Actual harm isn’t necessary.
But simply walking half naked and screaming to yourself isn’t illegal and you can’t be committed for it.
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Naked yelling at the sky and firing a gun? As a citizen, I would try to take SOME action to stop her, but in a gentle sort of way, cuz you know she’s suffering from something not good.
A dude in full body armour unloading clip after clip ? I’ll drive over his ass then back up and do it again.
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I’ll point out I included others to blame for legal circumstances that have led to these problems, besides Reagan.
Also, yes, you can’t commit others against their will without them posing a possible harm to themselves or others. Which is as it should be. The problem is the difficulty of a definition of “harm”, and the uselessness of 72-hour holds for people with long-term problems like mental illness and drug addiction. These are both contributors to the current situation.
For what Reagan and others’ contributed, here are some other lowlights:
…but you and I can push this around all day.
Let’s skip ahead to a perhaps more useful conversation?
What do you think might be done to make this current situation better?
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She was baring it all on the highway
I just assumed she was part of that Well-Regulated Militia I keep hearing about.
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Is this gonna be a thing? Florida Man, meet Bay Area Woman?
yup.
Armchair diagnoses are a no no.
Welllp. I, for one, am wondering if this is the return of the Homecoming Queen.
Disagree. It takes a village to call the cops and all the other agencies to get the resource allocated to deal with one mental case.
I had a guy inside my property in front of my kitchen window screaming at the top of his lungs after midnight: “I know who you are and I know your family and I am going to kill your entire family!” - neighbors picking up every word several doors down. Cops coming from a station I can easily walk to in 10 minutes took over 45 minutes to get here.
Because he had not clearly made eye contact with me inside while saying this, he was not deemed a specific threat to me or my family. They cuffed him, led him through the front gate and, with him still on my property, they uncuffed him and everyone went their separate ways and needless to say, I did not fall back asleep that night.
Bottom line, this person was distressed enough to be threatening murder - also maybe I should mention, this was in the hood and it was a white guy. My next door neighbor, a Vietnam vet and proud gun owner, possibly would have shot him if this had occurred at his place instead of mine. We’d have vouched for the neighbor and a life may have been lost. These agencies did nothing, NOTHING about it.
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I did say one had to document it. I suppose I should have been more clear. I meant record them.
The problem with simply calling the 911 without recording is that many mentally ill people can hold it together enough to pretend to be fine when they see cops (or judges) since the bar for a 5150 is one has to legitimately believe the person intends to carry out the threat.
Also, I was referring to someone in public. In SF, if you call 911 for someone in a public space who doesn’t have a weapon, they’ll dispatch one of the street crisis teams instead of the cops and they handle things rather differently.
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SF is kinda contained in a giant square and is not a giant sprawl city, so these teams can get there pretty quickly within city limits. If this person was on the highway, that could be state (CHP) jurisdiction and very difficult to have such a team near every highway.
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In other recent Bay Area GTA news:
I won’t say naked lady with gun was mentally ill, but I can say it’s hard to understand any rational plan or goal with her actions, which is in stark contrast with this well-organized group.
I do realize if you look at crime stats, numbers look not bad, but I’m wondering are people reporting less, are things getting charged less, or are they opting for non-serious charges in more incidents, or is it that we’re really seeing GTA style but that’s not impacting the numbers?
What would I do if I encountered that situation with the naked lady on the bridge? Floor it and get out of there! I probably wouldn’t call 911 for that.
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Yeah, it could have been finding a parking spot at a place where you could write and act in a one-woman play, or just that there’s no defense when a vehicle has no cat converter, but you know…it’s hard this summer. One big park, but suddenly prudish, so…
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Congratulations, you just drove over a good guy with a gun who was trying to stop a bad guy with a gun.
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