Mothers attacked by baseball-bat wielding children as San Francisco crime wave intensifies

Violent robberies are being carried out in broad daylight in wealthy enclaves such as Noe Valley, a tight-knit community, where free yoga classes are held every Sunday in the town square.

One victim of the string of recent attacks, who only wished to be identified as CW, said the police appeared to have “zero interest” in investigating her attack.

She was thrown to the ground by a boy who stole her phone last Monday when she was on the way to collect her daughter from the nursery.

A neighbour’s security system caught the car on video and she was able to track her phone for 18 hours after the attack. But after she reported the crime, no investigator responded to the developments.

When she emailed a police officer to ask who she could contact to help “improve how these things get tackled”, she was told to “do some research yourself”.

The next day she was driving to the police station to complain about the response, when she saw a patrol car on the street where she had been robbed.

Punched in the face

It transpired another mother had been attacked, with the same getaway car, but this time she was punched in the face.

“For 24 hours, I had been trying desperately to get the police to engage with me to stop these guys. Zero response. And then it happened again in the same location,” she said.

Mr Mandelman said the city’s soft approach on crime has been good at “dismantling the systems” without fixing the underlying problems.

“I don’t think that our interventions for people who are committing petty crimes are particularly effective. I mean, fine, you don’t put people in jail, but what are you doing? Well, if you’re doing nothing, then what’s the outcome going to be? Not great.”

The San Francisco Police Department did not respond to requests for comment.