Mission Mission

[video via Keslrrr]

Or is it?

Check out the tale of a recent ride-along over at The Bold Italic. Written by Mark Lukach with design by Diana Martinez. Among other things, we learn that when you get pulled over late at night for something seemingly insignificant, the cops are just using you as an excuse to flash their lights.

[From midnight to 2 a.m.], the most important thing for officers is to be as obvious as possible. The easiest way to do that is to pull people over. So we did that. If we saw a guy with a tail light out, or turning left where it’s prohibited, we pulled the car over. Not to cite the guy. Not to be dicks. We did it in order to have police lights flashing on busy streets where drugs are sold, gangs congregate, and the inebriated get rowdy. In the course of an hour, we pulled over four cars along Mission Street, and didn’t ticket a single driver. We were just letting our presence be known.

Read the rest here.

The Mission Police took a beating at Tuesday’s community meeting concerning increasing violence in the neighborhood.

On the bright side, they had a fun raffle during the event:

Eventually, Corrales managed to lighten the mood – just in time for the raffle. Latecomers and newbies rushed to get their names in for the monumental door prizes – police station pens, a mug and two Giants tickets.

“Can I borrow your pen?” one man asked the winner of a Mission Station pen.

“I came just in time for door prizes!” said DJ Brown who later won the tickets.

Congrats to DJ Brown and the other winners!

[via Mission Loc@l]

Our blogosphere comrade generic1 was held up by gunpoint a couple of days ago, and couldn’t get the police to show up to take his report. So the next day he walked right up to an Oakland Police Officer in the same area he was assaulted, and this guy flat out refused to take his report.

If you read the full story, the officer in question probably wasn’t trying to be a dick; it’s just policy. But still, if someone says, “hey, I was held up by gunpoint here,” shouldn’t that take priority?

Full scoop here, which includes interesting details like the fact that apparently cops are as addicted to their iPhones as I am.

Holy shit!  Two headlines from SF Appeal today:

Mission Stabbing, Tenderloin Shooting Leave 2 Injured

Police Man Was Shot In Outer Mission During Attempted Carjacking

Oy.  Terrible.

Related: did everyone witness the overwhelming cop presence in Dolores Park this weekend?

Following Friday’s shootings:

The captain of San Francisco’s Mission District police station will hold a meeting with residents tonight to discuss police efforts to stem gang-related violence, which left three men dead over the weekend.

Police are still trying to figure out what triggered the initial hostilities, but the conflict is believed to be between separate factions of Nortenos, police spokeswoman Sgt. Lyn Tomioka said.

Word.  The meeting will be held tonight at Mission Educational Projects, Inc. at 6 p.m., and will be hosted by Mission Station police Captain Stephen Tacchini.

Address is 3049 24th St. at Treat, if you’d like to attend.

From 10-5, the police did not seem interested in doing anything more dramatic than giving homeless people a hard time, but I noticed the typical drug-bizarre was missing from Hipster Hill.  Did they ever come out and taze some bros?

Whilst shopping at my favorite little corner store at 16th and Mission, I saw out of the corner of my eye some people run by in the street. Then said people were suddenly awash in red and blue lights. And there was yelling on a bullhorn and big signs and more people. A protest against something or other had materialized in front of my eyes in a matter of seconds.

Strangely, the protesters converged on Wells Fargo holding a 5′x5′ sign that said, “No Police in Greece,” or something like that. I might have remembered more specifically what the sign said had any aspect of the protest- like, at all- made any sense.

After watching for a few minutes and listening to the guy with the bull horn yell (again, not exactly, but basically), “We’ll burn your face off,” I headed across the street to ask some questions. I started with a kid who was holding one side of the aforementioned giant sign.

Me: So what’s the deal?
Him: We’re protesting.
Me: Against what?
Him: Against a police state.
Me: glances around at the dozen or so police officers protecting the protesters and their right of free speech. Wow, it’s really nice of these police officers to protect you while you protest against them.
Him: blank stare.
Me: What’s this about Greece?
Him: It’s about the killing of Alexis Grigoropoulos. He was killed by police in Greece.
Me: Why Wells Fargo?
Him: Huh?
Me: Why are you protesting in front of Wells Fargo?
Him: We don’t like banks.
Me: This bank, or just all banks?
Him: All banks. We’re going to be stopping at a few others.
Me: Ok, that’s cool. So who organized the protest?
Him: Nobody.

Feeling even more confused than when I started talking to this kid, I moved up the street a little and questioned a police officer who was waiting dutifully on his motorcycle.

Me: So what’s the deal?
Police Guy: I don’t know, they’re protesting all over the place. Their last stop was New College. You know the one on Valencia Street?
Me: Yeah. What are they protesting against?
Police Guy: They’re mad at us police. We wouldn’t let them occupy some building earlier.
Me: So why are they protesting outside Wells Fargo?
Police Guy: I don’t know. Earlier they took a vote and everyone voted to just go drink at a bar, but the guy with the megaphone over there, he vetoed that. So they’re here.

I walked away thinking how much I love this ridiculous city.

More:

They don’t fuck around in Athens on Unburying the Lead.

Laser war in Athens on Danger Room.