San Francisco police are pretty ecstatic to announce they've busted a bank robber who they say ripped off money from a Mission Street bank earlier this week.
Officer Albie Esparza says police arrested Fernando Sylvestry, 53 of San Francisco, on suspicion of burglary, robbery, and a narcotics violation.
On Monday at about 3:30 pm., police were called to a bank located on the 2500 block of Mission Street. Police say the robber casually walked into the bank and handed the teller a demand note.
A San Francisco jury has decided that there wasn't enough evidence to convict 26-year-old Clifton Moore of assaulting a patron at the San Francisco library last year.
According to the Public Defender's Office, the jury concluded that Moore was the victim of mistaken identity after multiple witnesses gave starkly different descriptions of the attacker.
On Sept. 11, 2013, a 61-year-old homeless man was sitting at a computer terminal at the San Francisco Main library when someone struck him from behind with a chair. The victim, who did not see his attacker, was left with a deep cut to his scalp.
The demographics of San Francisco are changing with a rapidity befitting melting polar ice. That said, we remain a compassionate bunch. The notion of authorities forcing the mentally ill into confinement and onto medication is not an easy sell here.
Last week at the press conference for the new SAFE Bikes registration program, Leah Shahum, director of the San Francisco Bike Coalition, mentioned something intriguing that was coming down the pike: an Unclaimed Bicycle Ordinance. I'd never heard of this, but it sounded like a thoughtful way to make use of the 800-plus stolen bikes sitting in the SFPD warehouse that have never been claimed by their owner.
The Unclaimed Bicycle Ordinance would be an amendment to Police Code Section 1405.1. The law as it stands today says that the SFPD may turn over unclaimed bicycles to the Human Services Agency for "use in programs designed to prevent juvenile delinquency." But the amendment will require that bicycles valued at less than $500 be donated to the Human Services Agency for programs designed to prevent juvenile delinquency or "any program or activity designed to serve low-income or transit dependent populations in San Francisco."
The amendment was already approved by the Government Audit and Oversight Committee on Feb.18 and will now go to the full Board of Supervisors for a vote.
With all this talk about wealth, gentrification, and Google buses, we thought this informative LA Times video report about income gaps was a nice wrap to the discussion.
The newspaper confirmed, using U.S. Census from 2012, that San Francisco was among the top cities where the income gap was the widest. In other words, the rich are too rich and the poor are too poor here in San Francisco.
According to the report, San Francisco's wealthy residents earned 15 times more than people in the low-income bracket.
A convicted sex offender who recently attacked a police officer in Montana is on the run -- and federal authorities believe he may have been seen in the Bay Area as recent as last week.
KGO is reporting that Kevin Anthony Briggs, was spotted in San Francisco, Oakland, and Berkeley and may be working in the area.
"Kevin Briggs has worked in hotels before, he's worked in landscaping, so he could be working for money to be traveling to Mexico, Oregon, Washington state..." FBI spokesman Peter Lee told the news station.
