It was Wednesday at 4 p.m. and two men and one woman, all in their 20s, saw an easy mark — a 45-year-old man walking on Mission Street near 16th and talking on his phone, according to a police report.

One of the suspects tried to grab the victim’s cell phone, but met resistance.

The gang of three was prepared. One blasted the victim in the face with a chemical agent and another snatched the cell phone from his hands, according to police.

All three suspects fled on foot. The victim suffered from a swollen face and inflamed facial membranes.

Crime is trauma and the county offers different services. Here is a link to a page of services.

Victims of violent crime can contact the Trauma Recover Center at UCSF.

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Founder/Executive Editor. I’ve been a Mission resident since 1998 and a professor emeritus at Berkeley’s J-school since 2019 when I retired. I got my start in newspapers at the Albuquerque Tribune in the city where I was born and raised. Like many local news outlets, The Tribune no longer exists. I left daily newspapers after working at The New York Times for the business, foreign and city desks. Lucky for all of us, it is still there.

As an old friend once pointed out, local has long been in my bones. My Master’s Project at Columbia, later published in New York Magazine, was on New York City’s experiment in community boards.

Right now I'm trying to figure out how you make that long-held interest in local news sustainable. The answer continues to elude me.

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