I tend to refer to what's happening in SF as SF-Stockholm syndrome (I do not mean this as disrespectful, only that I don't know any other way to describe the normalization of what happens here). I grew up in Texas, spent time on the East Coast, with a reasonable stint in NYC, and spent just over a year Scotland. I really have never seen the openness and acceptance of severe substance abuse like I have on the West Coast of the United States (not just in SF).

Portland, SF, LA, Oakland, Berkeley, pretty much every major city here, there are areas of the city where serious drug use, and some crime, is effectively just tolerated. SF is particularly unique, because, by a wide margin, it's the smallest in area and most walkable. Other cities tend to be automobile-centric, so non-organized crime tends to stay in small areas of the city (though, from my understanding, this is changing in Portland for the worse).

This is combine with a fairly strong anti-police culture. I don't know the veracity or history, but people here, even perfectly law abiding people, tend to think the police forces are generally corrupt-and-racist, or have a history of corruption and racism. I'm regularly shock that everyone here seems to be disgusted with the police, but nearly nobody has any intention or desire to reform, normalize, or even overhaul the institution. Many seem to see very idea of police as just a bad thing.

Combine this with the out-of-control opiate epidemic, and what this seems to have created is a pretty nuts, but not actually abnormally dangerous, environment in San Francisco in particular. There is little enforcement of any laws, except parking enforcement. When my friends from Germany visited, they were very curious about this "opiate and crime thing" after reading about book about Fentanyl, so as part of their visit, I showed them the open drug markets around midnight at UN Plaza, at Civic Center BART station. They were horrified. It's hard to describe the scene of crowds of people, many just shuffling around, obviously high, often with pretty obvious other complications from living in squalor.

I call it Stockholm Syndrome because people have genuinely convinced themselves that this is normal. People here legitimately believe that leaving anything at all in your car, even small things, in any major city in America, will likely lead to a break in. Obviously this is incredibly untrue, and SF is an outlier in theft (to the point that the stats are laughably inaccurate because nobody even reports car break-ins to the police anymore), but people have acclimated to the culture, and just assume it's normal, if they don't leave the region on a regular basis.

Ironically, the city is actually fairly safe with regards to violent crime. Not especially safe, but the homicide figures show that things aren't "out of control" in the violent crime aspect.

The thing that's shocking is how in-your-face it all is. The signs of severe substance abuse, are ever-present in a shockingly large amount of the commercial districts of the city (though most of the city is perfectly safe, quite and residential). The city does absolutely nothing about it. They do not mandate addiction treatment, because, for the most part, the people with substance abuse issues never see a court room. Primarily, because the court system cannot handle the case load. My roommate is a Public Defender, so I'm acutely aware of the backlog of cases that are genuinely violent crime. Not that it matters, because in election-after-election, the candidates tend to be pretty much on the same page that nothing really will be done. Again, much of the populous has a very strong distaste for any policing action. I honestly believe that most people here legitimately don't like the idea of forcing people into treatment if they don't want it.

It is incredibly complex, and I've only just scratched the surface of the nuance in what's happening here. There are housing issues, inequality issues, nativist issues, agency issues, and even a bizarre idealization poverty and squalor. To cover everything would be more appropriate as an hour-long discussion over drinks at a bar where you can see what's actually happening with your own eyes, because I think most Europeans would be quite speechless at it all.

This tragedy did not happen in a bad part of town, and I honestly walk through worse areas at similar hours regularly, and it's generally fine.

Due to the very real issue of police brutality in SFPD, local politicians are opposed to increasing funding for SFPD without oversight, and a number of politicians want to decrease it due to their police brutality record.

That said, SFPD is having a hard time retaining and hiring officers as they can get better salaries elsewhere in the Bay with less overtime. Fresh out of Academy cops in San Jose can earn a $111k base that caps at $189k, but SFPD's starting base is $103k and caps at $147.5k. Even factoring overtime, SFPD comes out to less than SJPD for hours worked, and other richer suburbs can pay even more than either wth even less hours.

Add to that politicization of the SF DA's office and Public Defender's office for the exact same reason (pay sucks so political hacks from both sides of the aisle fight for control) and you have dysfunctional local law enforcement.

On top of all that, SF had massively redeveloped a lot of formerly redlined neighborhoods (Western Addition/Hayes Valley, Mid-Market/Civic Center, Mission Bay+Potrero/Hunters Point) which in turn displaced those who couldn't afford to move to cheaper working class suburbs like Antioch and Vallejo.

Add to that the very real issue of neighboring states and cities (both Republican like Nevada in the 2010s and Democrat like NYC in the late 2010s to present) bussing their basket case issues out to San Francisco.

All this lead to the dysfunction that is seen today in San Francisco.

“Crowded thoroughfares such as Market Street, even in the light of midday, stage a carnival of indecipherable outbursts and drug-induced thrashings about which the police seem to do nothing.”

This really touched me because the police in SF, if you ever see one, look disinterested at best.

Not saying that's ok, just that SF is hardly unique in that regard.

One of my wife's classmates wrote a B-school paper on this (having a certain intimate acquaintance with it). It's corruption and dysfunction between the SFPD and the DA's office. The two organizations have a uniquely antagonistic relationship, such that the SFPD actively does poorly at their job to spite the DA's office, and then the DA's office actively refuses to charge to spite the SFPD.

Uncertain what the set of incentives is that led to this, but I suspect it may have something to do with the DA being an elected official and hence responsible to the people of SF (who are fairly wary of the SFPD because of past history), while the SFPD are career civil servants who want to avoid taking any action that could endanger their life or job but aren't ultimately responsible to voters.

When I was a kid, people told me, it’s important to have an open mind, but not so open your brain falls out. SF attitude toward street crime is well past that point.

It's sadly exactly as shown in the news - car break-ins and zombies around TL. It's just sad and not safe.

I don't know how the rest of the US looks like right now in terms of crime rate and drugs abuse - but as an european I have never seen anything this bad.