SAN FRANCISCO — About 24 hours after President Trump declared San Francisco such a crime-ridden “mess” that he was recommending federal forces be despatched to revive order, Manit Limlamai, 43, and Kai Saetern, 32, rolled their eyes on the suggestion.
The pair — each within the software program trade — had been with buddies Thursday in Dolores Park, a vibrant inexperienced area with sweeping views of downtown, enjoying volleyball below a blue sky and shining autumn solar. Throughout them, folks sat on benches with books, flew kites, performed with canine or in any other case lounged away the afternoon on blankets within the grass.
Each Limlamai and Saetern stated San Francisco after all has points, and a few rougher neighborhoods — however that’s any metropolis.
“I’ve lived right here for 10 years and I haven’t felt unsafe, and I’ve lived everywhere in the metropolis,” Saetern stated. “Each metropolis has its issues, and I don’t suppose San Francisco is any totally different,” however “it’s not a hellscape,” stated Limlamai, who has been within the metropolis since 2021.
Each stated Trump’s suggestion that he would possibly ship in troops was extra alarming than reassuring — particularly, Limlamai stated, on prime of his current comment that American cities ought to function “coaching grounds” for U.S. army forces.
“I don’t suppose that’s acceptable in any respect,” he stated. “The army is just not educated to do what must be achieved in these cities.”
Throughout San Francisco, residents, guests and outstanding native leaders expressed comparable concepts — if not a lot sharper condemnation of any troop deployment. None shied away from the truth that San Francisco has issues, particularly with homelessness. A number of additionally talked about a creeping city decay, and that the town wants a little bit of a polish.
However federal troops? That was a tough no.
A variety of individuals on Market Avenue in downtown San Francisco on Thursday.
“It’s simply extra of [Trump’s] madness,” stated Peter Hill, 81, as he performed chess in a barely edgier park close to Metropolis Corridor. Hill stated utilizing troops domestically was a fascist energy play, and “a nasty factor for your entire nation.”
“It’s fascism,” agreed native activist Wendy Aragon, who was hailing a cab close by. Her Latino household has been within the nation for generations, she stated, however she now fears talking Spanish on the road on condition that immigration brokers have admitted concentrating on individuals who look or sound Latino, and troops within the metropolis would solely exacerbate these fears. “My group is below assault proper now.”
State Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) stated troop deployments to the town had been “fully pointless” and “typical Trump: petty, vindictive retaliation.”
“He desires to assault anybody who he perceives as an enemy, and that features cities, and so he began with L.A. and Southern California due to its giant immigrant group, after which he proceeded to cities with giant Black populations like Chicago, and now he’s transferring on to cities which might be simply perceived as very lefty like Portland and now San Francisco,” Wiener stated.
Abigail Jackson, a White Home spokesperson, defended such deployments and famous crime reductions in cities, together with Washington, D.C., and Memphis, the place native officers — together with D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat — have embraced them.
“America’s as soon as nice cities have descended into chaos and crime because of Democrat insurance policies that put criminals first and law-abiding residents final. Making America Secure Once more — particularly crime-ridden cities — was a key marketing campaign promise from the President that the American folks elected him to satisfy,” Jackson stated. “San Francisco Democrats ought to take a look at the super ends in DC and Memphis and hearken to fellow Democrat Mayor Bowser and welcome the President in to scrub up their metropolis.”
A police officer shuts the door to his automotive after an individual was allegedly caught carrying a knife close to an indication selling an AI-powered museum exhibit in downtown San Francisco.
A presidential ‘ardour’
San Francisco — a bastion of liberal politics that overwhelmingly voted towards Trump within the final election — has been derided by the conservative proper for generations as a terrific American jewel misplaced to damaging progressive insurance policies.
With its tech-heavy economic system and downtown core hit exhausting by the pandemic and the nation’s shift towards distant work, the town has had a very tough go in recent times, which solely exacerbated its picture as a metropolis in decline. That it produced a few of Trump’s most outstanding political opponents — together with Gov. Gavin Newsom and former Vice President Kamala Harris — has solely made it extra of a punching bag.
In August, Trump recommended San Francisco wanted federal intervention. “You take a look at what the Democrats have achieved to San Francisco — they’ve destroyed it,” he stated within the Oval Workplace. “We’ll clear that one up, too.”
Then, earlier this month, to the chagrin of liberal leaders throughout the town, Marc Benioff, the billionaire Salesforce founder and Time journal proprietor who has lengthy been a booster of San Francisco, stated in an interview with the New York Instances that he supported Trump and welcomed Guard troops within the metropolis.
“We don’t have sufficient cops, so if they are often cops, I’m all for it,” Benioff stated, simply as his firm was making ready to open its annual Dreamforce conference within the metropolis, full with a whole lot of personal safety officers.
The U.S. Structure typically precludes army forces from serving in police roles within the U.S.
On Friday, Benioff reversed himself and apologized for his earlier stance. “Having listened carefully to my fellow San Franciscans and our native officers, and after the biggest and most secure Dreamforce in our historical past, I don’t consider the Nationwide Guard is required to handle security in San Francisco,” he wrote on X.
He additionally apologized for “the priority” his earlier help for troops within the metropolis had brought about, and praised San Francisco’s new mayor, Daniel Lurie, for bringing crime down.
Billionaire Elon Musk, the chief govt of Tesla, additionally known as for federal intervention within the metropolis, writing on his X platform that downtown San Francisco is “a drug zombie apocalypse” and that federal intervention was “the one answer at this level.”
Trump made his newest remarks bashing San Francisco on Wednesday, once more from the Oval Workplace.
Trump stated it was “considered one of our nice cities 10 years in the past, 15 years in the past,” however “now it’s a multitude” — and that he was recommending federal forces transfer into the town to make it safer. “I’m gonna be strongly recommending — on the request of presidency officers, which is at all times good — that you just begin taking a look at San Francisco,” he stated to main members of his regulation enforcement group.
Trump didn’t specify precisely what kind of deployment he meant, or which sorts of federal forces is perhaps concerned. He additionally didn’t say which native officers had allegedly requested assist — a declare Wiener known as a lie.
“Each American deserves to stay in a group the place they’re not afraid of being mugged, murdered, robbed, raped, assaulted or shot, and that’s precisely what our administration is working to ship,” Trump stated, earlier than including that sending federal forces into American cities had change into “a ardour” of his.
Kai Saetern, 32, was enjoying volleyball in Dolores Park on Thursday. Saetern stated he has by no means felt unsafe dwelling in neighborhoods everywhere in the metropolis for the final 10 years.
Crime is down citywide
The responses from San Francisco, each to Benioff and Trump, got here swiftly, starting from calm discouragement to full-blown outrage.
Lurie didn’t reply immediately, however his workplace pointed reporters to his current statements that crime is down 30% citywide, homicides are at a 70-year low, automotive break-ins are at a 22-year low and tent encampments are at their lowest quantity on report.
“We’ve got a variety of work to do,” Lurie stated. “However I belief our native regulation enforcement.”
San Francisco Dist. Atty. Brooke Jenkins was rather more fiery, writing on-line that Trump and Homeland Safety Secretary Kristi Noem had turned “so-called public security and immigration enforcement right into a type of authorities sponsored violence towards U.S. residents, households, and ethnic teams,” and that she stood able to prosecute federal officers in the event that they hurt metropolis residents.
Attendees exit the Dreamforce conference downtown on Thursday in San Francisco.
“In the event you come to San Francisco and illegally harass our residents … I can’t hesitate to do my job and maintain you accountable identical to I do different violators of the regulation each single day,” she stated.
Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) — whose seat Wiener is reportedly going to hunt — stated the town “doesn’t need or want Donald Trump’s chaos” and can proceed to extend public security regionally and “with out the interference of a President looking for headlines.”
Newsom stated the usage of federal troops in American cities is a “clear violation” of federal regulation, and that the state was ready to problem any such deployment to San Francisco in courtroom, simply because it challenged such deployments in Los Angeles earlier this 12 months.
The federal appellate courtroom that oversees California and far of the American West has thus far allowed troops to stay in L.A., however is ready to proceed listening to arguments within the L.A. case quickly.
Trump had used anti-immigration enforcement protests in L.A. as a justification to ship troops there. In San Francisco, Newsom stated, he lacks any justification or “pretext” in anyway.
“There’s no current protest at a federal constructing. There’s no operation that’s being impeded. I suppose it’s only a ‘coaching floor’ for the President of United States,” Newsom stated. “It’s grossly unlawful, it’s immoral, it’s somewhat delusional.”
Nancy DeStefanis, 76, a longtime labor and environmental activist who was at San Francisco Metropolis Corridor on Thursday to complain about Golden Gate Park being shut to common guests for paid occasions, was equally derisive of troops getting into the town.
“So far as I’m involved, and I feel most San Franciscans are involved, we don’t need troops right here. We don’t want them,” she stated.
Passengers stroll previous a cracked window from the Civic Middle BART station in downtown San Francisco.
‘A picture I don’t need to see’
Not distant, throngs of individuals carrying Dreamforce lanyards streamed out and in of the Moscone Middle, heading backwards and forwards to close by Market Avenue and pouring into eating places, espresso outlets and take-out joints. The town’s issues — together with homelessness and related grittiness — had been obvious on the corners of the crowds, whilst chipper conference ambassadors and safety officers moved would-be stragglers alongside.
Not everybody was eager to be recognized discussing Trump or security within the metropolis, with some citing enterprise causes and others a worry of Trump retaliating towards them. However a number of folks had opinions.
Sanjiv, a self-described “techie” in his mid-50s, stated he most well-liked to make use of solely his first title as a result of, though he’s a U.S. citizen now, he emigrated from India and didn’t need to stick his neck out by publicly criticizing Trump.
He known as homelessness a “rampant downside” in San Francisco, however much less so than previously — and hardly one thing that might justify sending in army troops.
“It’s completely ridiculous,” he stated. “It’s not like the town’s below siege.”
Claire Roeland, 30, from Austin, Texas, stated she has visited San Francisco a handful of instances in recent times and had “blended” experiences. She has household who stay in surrounding neighborhoods and discover it fully protected, she stated, however when she’s on the town it’s “predominantly within the enterprise district” — the place it’s exhausting to not be disheartened by the apparent struggling of individuals with habit and psychological sickness and the grime that has gathered within the emptied-out core.
“There’s a variety of unlucky city decay taking place, and that makes you are feeling extra unsafe than you really are,” she stated, however there isn’t “any reasonable must ship in federal troops.”
She stated she doesn’t know what troops would do aside from confront homeless folks, and “that’s a picture I don’t need to see.”
Instances employees author Dakota Smith contributed to this report.
