San Francisco Mayor London Breed’s new attitude toward crime suggests the city is finally turning away from radically far-left socialist politics, according to one activist.
Her new attitude was as apparent as day during a contentious Board of Supervisors meeting that occurred on Tuesday. During the meeting, Supervisor Dean Preston, a self-described Democratic Socialist, slammed Breed for her recent crackdown on open-air drug markets in San Francisco.
“Will you follow your own Department of Public Health’s advice and end punitive policies specifically incarcerating and arresting drug users? Or will you ramp up these strategies… causing even more overdose deaths?” he said.
In response, Breed destroyed him.
Listen:
Attention @DeanPreston to the burn unit. Dean Preston to the burn unit!@LondonBreed @sfstandard @sfchronicle @mallorymoench @mattdorsey @StanleyRoberts pic.twitter.com/VfweXq17nn
— Conor Johnston (@conorj_SF) June 14, 2023
“Here we go. Another white man who’s talking about black and brown people as if you’re the savior of those people and you speak for them,” she began.
Ouch!
“I have a sister that I lost to a drug overdose in this city. I have friends and family members who’ve been lost in the Tenderloin with no aggressive action, no changes to policy. Have you ever spent time talking to those same black and brown people?” she added.
The Tenderloin is a San Francisco district that contains hundreds of homeless.
“The fact is it’s not just services. It’s also force. A friend of mine who unfortunately recently died over liver complications, he said, ‘London, if I didn’t get arrested and if I didn’t have Delancey Street, I don’t know what I would have done to turn my life around,” she continued.
“Delancey Street” is likely a reference to the Delancey Street Foundation, which is essentially a rehabilitation center for drug abusers.
Finishing up her devastating critique, Breed reminded Preston that he has no clue what he’s talking about.
“And so you can quote all these statistics all you want. But at the end of the day, you’ve never lived in it. You’ve never experienced it. You don’t know what most of these people and their family members are dealing with. So no, I’m not going to start using some sort of system based on what you suggested I should use,” she said.
“I’m going to continue to make sure we’re providing treatment, providing compassionate care. But at the end of the day, when we need to make arrests because someone’s breaking the law and needs to be held accountable and can potentially be forced in to treatment for services, I’m going to do so,” she added.
Her remarks earned her massive praise:
Props to @LondonBreed for putting him in his place.
— TheSeattleCentrist (@ayemat) June 13, 2023
Love it, about time someone call that guy out for being too self righteous.
— Gabe (@gemckamey) June 13, 2023
Right on London! She only saying what many of us have been feeling for a long time.
— LOCO SF (@LOCOSF2014) June 13, 2023
For once, I agree with Mayor Breed if she means it sincerely and wants to address the drugs issue head on.
— Indian_Republican (@ind_thought) June 14, 2023
She does have a point. SF has a problem with overeducated white guys invading from NYC/Midwest and ruining everything.
— B Mitori (@bmitori) June 14, 2023
Tom Wolf, a recovering addict turned activist, was among those impressed by her words.
“It sent a message, I think, to San Franciscans that the age of this kind of Democratic Socialist, radical politicking in San Francisco is coming to an end,” he told Fox News this week.
“Wolf was addicted to heroin and homeless in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district in 2018. He said his sixth arrest landed him in county jail long enough to get clean and reevaluate his life. Now he is a recovery advocate and has often criticized Breed and other government officials,” according to Fox News.
That said, he’s not letting her completely off the hook.
“Even though she was right [on Tuesday], a lot of what we see that’s happened in San Francisco happened on her watch. So she also has to bear some responsibility for that,” he said.
Indeed, Fox News notes that “Breed joined a chorus of liberal mayors across the country who diverted funds from police in 2020 after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis.”
To be fair, she eventually reversed course a year later, but still, problems have persisted for years, and many of them don’t appear to be getting better.
AT&T next to bail as the ‘collapse of San Francisco’ accelerates at an ‘alarming pace’ https://t.co/7tnyGFiLid via @BIZPACReview
— BPR based (@DumpstrFireNews) June 16, 2023
Just last week, the city’s top mall chose to default on its loan and hand its property back to lenders rather than waste any more time and money trying to operate in San Francisco.
“They walked away because they had lost confidence that shoppers would return to this town,” Wolf said of the mall.
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V. Saxena is a staff writer with a decade of experience as a professional writer, and a lifetime of experience as an avid news junkie. He holds a degree in computer technology from Purdue University. Saxena also contributes to BizPac Review.
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