Mission Mission

David Kelso sums up a pretty standard Thursday in the Mission.  Anyone else spot the hit and run on 16th and Valencia?

Update: David sends us an update as to what happened: “Dude skating got hit, slid up the hood and then punched the windscreen. Car sped off with him still on the hood. Fell off after a block.”  Rumor has it that the driver went up onto the curb in an effort to shake the skateboarder off.  The guy was pretty messed up and had to be taken away in an ambulance.  Epic.

Travis Jensen has detailed a fairly epic crack-bust that occurred this past weekend in front of a dollar store on Mission and 17th. Without spoiling the entire story, there was a fairly interesting tidbit about Mission St. crack sales thrown in the mix:

We later found out that this particular dollar store is notorious for crack sales. Apparently, it’s safer to do the exchange inside the store than out on the street. In this particular case, however, the buyer turned out to be an undercover cop. Whoops.

I had always wondered how so many dollar stores could stay in business…

(Credit SFist)

There has been some well documented hate directed towards Valencia St. fixie start-up Mission Bicycle, but this seems a little over the top.  Was it random or targeted?  We will only be able to speculate…

Mr. Pickles moments after his return.

Mr. Pickle was just anonymously dropped off across front of Shotwell’s on 20th and Treat.  According to Mama Pickle, the thief called this afternoon claiming to have “felt bad” about taking Mr. Pickle and offered to return him in the night.  She reported that she believed it was a joke but still asked that “he drop him off before close so I could bring him inside.”  She stressed that if he was returned, she would not involve the police.  Soon after, she received another call that he was dropped off around the corner, where she found him in a box.

Mama said that the thief even called again to verify that Mama and Mr. were reunited.

Mama started to take off the red bandana, an addition from the Pickle hostage taker, as I was leaving.  After some discussion, she agreed to leave it on him as a stylish-reminder of this part of Mr. Pickle’s history.

Shortly after thaddius_larue tipped us off that someone at Yahoo was looking into the identity of the “The Pickler,” we received detailed account information from a tipster at Yahoo, including name, address and telephone number.  Our source has suggested that the alleged kidnapper once resided in Foster City and is presently employed by a San Francisco Tattoo studio.  This information is yet to be substantiated.  Additionally, Mission Mission has the thief’s Comcast Cable address.

Soon after we received the information, “The Pickler” claimed that he would return Mr. Pickle:

“ill return it jeez, just a prank that has gone too far. never intended to harm him, just found him out on the street at 11 at night and thought it would be funny. he will be home very very soon.”

It appears the saga is nearing its conclusion.  Hopefully we will see our friend on SVN once again.

“Hi, I moved to Oakland now since everyone wants to be a fucking detective.”

Also, Ray Potes from Hamburger Eyes explains his involvement with the initial photo posted to the “Cellybrain” flickr account:

whoa!! ive been in and out of town so i havent been able to properly address this. but lots of phone calls about this and i am really trying to figure it out.

check it out, i run a photo magazine called “hamburger eyes”. also run a community darkroom called “photo epicenter”. on our website we have a side blog called “cellybrain”. its runs off our flickr account. people can submit cell phone photos through their phone, either straight to the flickr account, or to my phone or email and then i can forward it to the flickr. it updates the site automatically and immediatly. its just a neat feature for our site that a friend help me setup.

if you look at the flickr page, you can see that the cell phone photos come from all kinds of sources. not just mine.

anyways, people who submit cell phone photos often give out the info so others can post too. ive already notified pretty much all my contacts to find out who actually sent the photo. no responses yet. there was a tag with “mark” on it but the mark i know doesnt send cell photos.

i eat at mr. pickles all the time. i am a business owner. i live in the mission. i have no reason to steal this sign. i too have a huge hand painted sign on the front door of my space that costs hundreds of dollars, and i understand how painful it must be to have such a thing stolen.

i got a phone call this morning that the cops came to our place of business and searched for the sign!!!?? i had to cut my trip short and rushed back from san diego to take care of this.

if you know me, you know that i am always willing to help in any situation.

i saw that you tried to contact me through flickr but since we have it on auto pilot i never need to login to see if i have messages.

i got an email from armand at mission local when this went up, and i told him that i would notify all my people to help me figure this out. which i have done and no response. i have been back and forth between sd and la on photo assignment which is why i havent commented.

i will keep searching, but please understand that i, ray potes, am not a thief.

thanks,
ray

pixelfairy provides us with an amazing update on the Mr. Pickle’s case:

Mr. Pickle Update

Talked to a police officer today while I was stopped at the light in front of MrPickle. I asked if they were looking for Mr Pickle.

me: “You guys looking for Mr Pickle ”

officer: “Yes, we are.”

me: “I saw him on flickr”

officer: “Yeah, we checked that out.”

me: “and…”

officer: nothing.

me: “maybe he’s free-basing dill under the bridge”

officer: no reaction

me: “actually, I think he’s a runaway. He’s probably in México, on the beach.”

officer: “yeah, the sombrero.”

light turns green, we smile, I ride up 20th …thinking about Mr. Pickle on the beach in México.

Sounds familiar.

vomit cleanup.

Finally, the San Francisco Guardian Angels were on the scene doing absolutely nothing (and getting paid about the same).  This doesn’t even deserve half a paragraph.

BTW, we're going to be billing you for this EMT once you are all patched up. Sorryboutit.

There was just an 8 on 1 beatdown and mugging on Capp and 24th right at the entrance of the corner parking lot.  All accounts claim it was pretty brutal.  8 youngings, 3 girls and 5 guys, were hanging out in the back of the parking lot for “over 30 minutes,” according to a anonymous witness at the scene, when a fairly built male in a red convertible pulled up and parked.  The teens then jumped him and beat him up pretty badly.  Apparently he fought them off briefly but they eventually wrestled him to the ground and started kicking him in the head.  They then took all his possessions and “even tried to steal his car” but eventually fled the scene in their own vehicles that were parked on Capp.

On the roof of the Wells Fargo bank on 22nd and Mission (sorry, about the point-n-shoot digital zoom)

No matter where you fall on the graffiti/street-art debate, you have to give these vandals some credit.  Any builderer can tell you that getting to the roof of the Wells Fargo bank isn’t the easiest ascent in the Mission and spraying down a bank with a paintball gun is just ballsy (with bonus points for the Christmas theme–I love presents).

UPDATE: Reader LibertyHiller points out that I’m completely unobservant and that the building was actually paintballed 10 years ago in an anti-gentrification riot.  Ant-gentrification riots = SWEET, not noticing the aftermath until last week = LASIK SURGERY TIME.

Spraying down U.S. Bank with paintballs