Crime Is Up In Palo Alto. Yes, This Is Funny.

October 31, 2008 | Ted Dziuba

Crime has spiked in the city of Palo Alto, which is home to Facebook and a couple of other walking corpses. Since June, there have been twelve street robberies, eleven of which remain unsolved. There have also been 146 home burglaries so far this year, up from last year's total of 128.

Why is this awesome? Because try as it might to be genteel, Palo Alto is still within driving range of some poor communities. If you've got no qualms with crime and you lose your job because the economy goes to shit, who better to knock over than a bunch of rich pricks? The median home price there is $1.3 million, so your chances of a score are pretty good. Shit, if you rob someone on the street, you've got a 91% chance of getting away with it.

Voting for Obama Makes It All Better

In response to this, the citizens of Palo Alto have turned to the police for help. The police, having been relegated to arresting shoplifting Stanford students for years, don't know what to do. The only thing they can come up with is to start interrogating black people, no joke. At a town meeting this past week, Palo Alto police chief Lynne Johnson said:

We do not want to create an environment of fear of people of color in this community, absolutely not, but on the other hand we have to do due diligence in trying to apprehend the suspects that are doing this ... When our officers are out there and they see an African-American, in a congenial way, we want them to find out who they are.

Oh no! Colored folk in our town! I don't know whether to laugh or facepalm. And in a stunning display of cultural understanding, Chief Johnson explains that black people who wear do-rags are likely criminals:

The one suspect around the California Avenue train station was wearing a do-rag. If my officers see an African-American who has a do-rag on his head, absolutely the officers will be stopping and asking who that person is.

Right, so if you're black, don't wear a do-rag in Palo Alto. This probably goes for Indians, and anyone else with darker skin.

Something tells me that she's never been to Oakland.

Comments

October 31, 2008 — ButtHurt

Does this mean MC Hammer won't be able to attend my party in PA?

Boy, my party is going to suck if MC Hammer isn't allowed into Palo Alto by the police. I know he looks a little thuggish, but it is perfectly safe for white people to be around him. I even double checked with Arrington just to make sure. I really don't want to have to track down Vanilla Ice for my party like those clowns at Nvidia.

October 31, 2008 — ademello

Of course not, fool

MC Hammer is too busy partying with the Google folks in Davos or wherever.

October 31, 2008 — CalAve

People of color...

I live a block from the California Ave Caltrain station and am of color. Do I have to move?

Isn't it ironic how this is the situation in Palo Alto, but in nearby Stanford underrepresented minorities are encouraged to be present through affirmative action?

Also, the only reason that dumbass was able to become a police chief is because she's a woman and whoever picked her thought the city was overdue for a female chief.

November 3, 2008 — Grew up in the PA ghetto (not verified)

No need to move

You need not move, since that's Mayfield, not real Palo Alto. Go any further South, and you're in the real slums of South Palo Alto, where I grew up: we had trailer parks, the Glass Slipper Inn, subsidized apartments, Alpha-Beta, a sea of Eichlers, toxic light-industrial like microfilm businesses, defense contractors, and even the oh-so-gauche Mayfield Mall just over the border in Mountain View!

November 3, 2008 — pepelicious

Yeah, anything south of

Yeah, anything south of Oregon Expressway between Alma and El Camino is still as sketchy as it's always been. We grew up in Midtown which was still pretty blue collar back then. My neighbor, who grew up there, told us stories of the biker gang that used to run that neighborhood. And there was the time my dad got mugged at gunpoint right outside our house getting the paper one morning. I moved back there a few years ago and there's not as many crackheads or dirtballs, but they're still alive and kicking in Palo Alto.

As for what's going on on University Avevenue, I think those are more crimes of opportunity than anything. People feel safe enough to leave their purses open on a table or resting on the ground at their feet. Or even the numerious laptops and iPods you see sitting out on the open, whether it's on a cafe table or the seat of someone's car. That type of crime only goes down when people get smarter about not flaunting their money and gadgets.

At any rate, if you ask some of the old timers, crime in Palo Alto is still down from what it used to be a long time ago.

October 31, 2008 — Rob

The Million Dollar Slum

My boss from the last failed startup (pre-bubble 1.0) lived in Palo Alto. He hated it: called it "the Million Dollar Slum." The houses leaked like sieves, the streets were always full of potholes, and teenagers ran rampant because their parents are too busy trying to pay off property taxes to pay any attention to them. He would have moved in a heartbeat if his wife were willing.

East Palo Alto was the poorest city in the Bay Area back then, and I wouldn't be surprised if it still were. Driving distance? Try walking distance. Every once in a while liberal guilt kicks in and the Palo Altoers donate computers to the East Palo Alto schools, and then crow about it.

So yeah, a quote like that from the PA police chief is not surprising at all.

October 31, 2008 — Ted Dziuba

david duke

"Every once in a while liberal guilt kicks in and the Palo Altoers donate computers to the East Palo Alto schools, and then crow about it."

People like that cause more problems than Klan members. That's the real face of racism.

November 7, 2008 — Arrington's Tired Suspenders (not verified)

Leave the brothers alone: focus on Arrington

Those mall cops should focus on the REAL danger to Palo Alto.

Mike Arrington.

I've spoken to several owners of all you can eat buffets in Palo Alto, and they are absolutely terrified of Mike.

Some of them have had to actually Tazer Arrington during his 9th trip back to the buffet, simply to save their businesses.

Stay in Artherton, Fat boy Arrington.