The police as of this writing have not identified the 17 year-old suspect who was arrested immediately after the shooting, saying only that he is from Tracy, California. District Attorney Brooke Jenkins on Tuesday filed attempted murder, robbery, and other charges against the suspect.
It’s an election year and the embattled Mayor of San Francisco was quick to respond in a San Francisco Chronicle report calling the attack a “terrible and rare” occurrence in Union Square, going on to say that San Francisco has a relatively low crime rate. The Chronicle’s Demian Bulwa posted on the X platform that, “Homicides are down so far that they may set a new low in the modern era — back to at least ’85.”
Bulwa had to go back to the crime ridden 1980s to find a statistic high enough to limbo under. In fact, state Department of Justice data shows that 2022 homicides were the highest in eleven years and, with the exception of a few outliers, amongst the highest in 23 years. This wrongheaded appraisal of crime statistics is small comfort to Pearsall and his family much less to California’s 1,892 homicide victims and 29,179 gunshot victims.
Shootings are indeed rare in Union Square, but they aren’t just two blocks away in the notorious Tenderloin where shootings, robberies, drug dealing, and overdose deaths are common. They are common in other parts of California as well where criminals pay small attention to political jurisdictions or neighborhood zip codes. Unless you believe as the Chronicle apparently does, we are enjoying the safest days in 50 years.
California homicides are up from 1,739 in 2018 to 1,892 in 2023, an increase of 8.7 percent. And while there was a drop from 2021 to 2023, it should be noted that 23 cities and counties failed to provide crime statistics in 2023, resulting in an undercount of at least 100 murders.
Where there is little actuarial controversy are the increasing number of non-fatal gunshot victims. In 2018 there were 17,908 and in 2023 the number had increased to 29,179 – an increase of 63 percent. Many of those victims are non-fatal victims of crime sprees or mass shootings. They are the murder victims who didn’t die.
Then there are the suspects. Despite California’s reputation as a tough on gun crime state, its crime rate is not reflective of those laws. That may be because California’s laws are focused on gun control – not crime control.
In fact, California is bad at both.
Attorney General Rob Bonta has a staff of firearms investigators with an investigative case backlog of firearms in the hands of prohibited persons (criminals and the mentally ill) that will take nearly 40 years to eliminate at their current rate of recovery. Meanwhile their over 14,000 firearms remain in circulation.
In addition, California has reduced the old “use a gun, go to prison” crimes mandating 10, 15, and 20-year enhancements for use, causing injury, or causing death to just 3,4, and 10 years. Penalties were reduced even for multiple victim cases.
Then there is the age of shooters. In 2023, suspects under the age of 18 committed 123 homicides. That’s up from 68 in 2019. Despite a 23 percent increase in juvenile arrests from 2022-2023, prosecutorial referrals to adult courts are down. This is mostly because California’s progressive appointed judges do not support charging so-called juveniles as adults.
In many cases the reasoning is based on a now discredited but often mentioned theory that people under the age of 25 have an underdeveloped “prefrontal cortex” which excuses them from criminal culpability. This is a premise that is so absurd that it would mean tens of millions of adult Americans are not responsible decision makers.
I wish Ricky Pearsall a speedy and full recovery. Unknowingly and undeservedly he, like all violent crime victims, are victims of both the criminals that harmed them and a system that enables them. This was a fate made clear last weekend on the cruel streets of San Francisco.
Steve Smith is a senior fellow in urban studies at the Pacific Research Institute, focusing on California’s growing crime problem.
