Stabbing of Cash App Creator Raises Alarm, and Claims of ‘Lawless’ San Francisco

The neighborhood can feel empty after dark, and the community has pushed aggressively for more law enforcement, particularly during the coronavirus pandemic. In 2019, the city proposed opening a homeless shelter in the area, and residents protested, arguing that the facility — which eventually did open — would be detrimental to public safety.

Opposition to the shelter gathered momentum after a woman trying to enter her condo building was attacked that summer by a man suffering from mental illness, one of many seemingly random assaults that occurred in succession as the pandemic emptied public spaces.

Several residents of the neighborhood said the city appeared lately to be rebounding from the gritty years of Covid-19 lockdowns. But a bodega owner in the area said that crime seemed to be rising, and that at night, the neighborhood became a backdrop for drug use and occasional sideshows. He declined to be identified, citing fears that Mr. Lee’s attacker had not been arrested and might return.

Scott Wiener, the state senator who represents the city, said the neighborhood, like many, “really took a hit during the pandemic,” adding that his own car was burglarized there about a year and a half ago. But he added that while property crime and homelessness remained issues, violent crime was uncommon in most of the city.

“No one should listen to anything Elon Musk has to say, particularly about San Francisco,” he said, calling the tech billionaire who bought Twitter “an opportunist who bought one of our anchor companies and proceeded to tear it apart.”

Mr. Lee’s death, he said, was a terrifying tragedy that deserved public attention and understandably unnerved the city, especially with no arrests. Crime statistics, he added, mean little when the victim is a loved one.

“But there’s this narrative that all of San Francisco is like Mad Max Thunderdome,” Mr. Wiener said, referring to the 1980s post-apocalyptic film, “and it’s not true.”