i passed a crazy guy yesterday as i was walking down the sidewalk - he was standing in a church doorway smoking, walking around in circles and waiting for it to open so he could get a handout and yelling insults at the passers-by.
i walked on as i always do with vagrants but he kept yelling so i made the mistake of turning around.
once he saw this he said 'yeah you mother-f----' and reached into his pocket and got a knife.
he came after me with the knife - backing me up by lunging - i taunted him into dropping it asking him if he felt he needed a knife - he actually did drop it and come after me flailing.
some lady yelled "i'm calling the cops" so he grabbed his knife and ran.
to the sfpd's credit they had 7 cars on-site in less that 4 minutes.
here's the thing:
they caught him with the knife and he admitted attacking me - so what'd they do? they gave him a citation to go to court, if convicted he could get fined.......fined?!
and that's ONLY because i agreed to sign a complaint (even with him standing there still yelling at me in handcuffs), otherwise they'd have cut him free right there. he also had outstanding warrants but they weren't enough (in dollars) to bring him in.
going after someone with a knife doesn't land you in jail and neither does stealing 5k from sax - what does? maybe if he'd had a gram of coke or something they'd have locked him up.
what's going on - if there's no consequences why don't we all just arm ourselves to the teeth and have at it - unreal
