On a Tuesday afternoon, Victoria Ochoa was taking orders for gyros and sandwiches at the registry at La Noisette, a deli at 15th and Mission streets. Ochoa, who lives in Oakland, takes BART to the 16th Street Station, and tends to arrive at work before 7 a.m. to open the shop.
From the inside looking out, Ochoa sees different views, but she also notices patterns.
“On weekdays, more homeless people are on the street with a lot of stuff with them,” Ochoa said. “And on the weekends, more people will sell stuff, and when they see the police, they move away.”
In recent weeks, she said, more people have been congregating on the west side of Mission Street, across from her shop. Before, the crowd tended to linger on the east side of the street. No matter what, the common theme for her is the “garbage everywhere” on her walk down Mission Street to the shop.
When asked about the RV-sized SFPD mobile command unit, which has parked at the 16th Street BART Plaza 24/7 for 78 days, Ochoa said that it makes her feel safer. And that sentiment is shared by shopkeepers around the corner of 15th and Mission streets.
“It’s good to have it,” said Sam Ao, who works at Puff and Stuff, a tobacco shop across from the deli. “There are not as many crowds as before.”
Mo K, who works at a clothing store across from the deli, agrees. “The presence makes a lot of people feel safer,” Mo said. “It’s a little peace of mind. I know the police and I will cross paths next to whatever weird stuff that’s going on.”
The biggest difference so far, Mo said, has been the decrease in violence. “But in terms of everything else,” Mo said. “It’s not gonna stop people from tucking away into the corners.”
Mo also remains skeptical about how useful the command unit actually will be other than making people feel safe. “What could it possibly do?” Mo asked. “If a cop car is not doing much in the past, what could that possibly do?”
Mathew,
Cops snarling ?
Keep in mind that over the last many years the department has added hundreds of ‘Lateral Transfers’ to their roster and that many of them are Rogue Cops disembarking from the SFPD stop on the American cop community’s Underground Railroad.
Why you could have been face to face with someone who has done some bad things.
go Niners !!
h.
Why can’t they park that thing and the cop car on the road? Or shove it into one of the back alleys where all the real skulduggery is going on? Or be really mobile and have the police walking around out in the public space behaving like human beings instead of aiming suspicious snarls at us from inside their RV and cars? Ironic that shopkeepers are happy with fewer people around, and at the same time are suffering from too few customers and they see no connection. The police vehicles, combined with the current criminals in government and political climate in Washington, do not make 16th street any more inviting than the “garbage everywhere” it has been for the last three decades. Cop drones, cameras, autonomous cars, “mobile command”, fences, cop robots, armor and weapon-laden police: feels dystopian.
It feels dystopian because it IS dystopian.
Same shit, different day.