The Miscreant of the Mission struck again.

In the Mission District, a 47-year-old homeless man with a long record of arrests has been causing chaos—assaulting people with bottles, vandalizing cars, harassing local businesses, and even allegedly setting fires. He has been arrested at least four times in the past two months. He has been previously released back to the streets under these conditions: show up for a future court date and check in with staff from the Pretrial Diversion Project. It’s unclear (though not likely) if he met any of these conditions. Finally, since his last arrest on August 9, a judge had enough. Superior Court Judge Gail Dekreon, in denying the man’s latest release, put it plainly: “He is thumbing his nose at the court… and he is a danger to the public.” 

For now, at least, he remains in custody - and that’s good news for Mission residents. But it’s also a damning indictment of our system. It should not take months of escalating chaos and repeated law-breaking before someone this dangerous is kept off the street. 

San Francisco has made real progress on crime in the last year, yet there remain systemic problems in the application of our criminal justice system that lead to disturbing examples of recurrent crime. The lack of reliable, inter-county mental facilities, for one. The city’s lack of locked treatment beds. Judges occasionally make decisions that seriously endanger public safety. All of these ingredients make one foul-tasting drink nobody should have to have put in front of them. We are still failing on disorder.

The terrible and unfortunate truth about what has been happening in the Mission is that it is not unique to this neighborhood. In the Castro, residents have endured years of violence and harassment from Zero Triball, a man who has been charged in nine separate cases and convicted of three felony assaults. Court records show he’s threatened to burn down a community center, hospitalized a man walking with his two-year-old, and even menaced a tourist with a blowtorch. Despite all of this, he is freely roving our city. In the Richmond, a homeless, registered sex offender named Joseph Adam Moore has been a nuisance to residents with signs offering free fentanyl near schools. He was arrested in 2023, and after being released, was caught hanging out at a playground. And earlier this year, Sean Collins—another offender who has previously burglarized the popular Java Hut café in the Sunset—stabbed cyclist Colden Kimber to death at a MUNI stop; Kimber was killed while trying to prevent Collins from verbally harassing a family.

These stories are not rare exceptions—instead, they are part of a disturbing pattern: individuals with severe mental illness, addiction, or criminal histories cycling endlessly between the streets, jail, and courtrooms. We have heard a lot about this revolving door but it feels like little has really changed despite City Hall passing some fairly major pieces of legislation attempting to address it.

In the Mission case, city officials have acknowledged what most of us already know: the man is deeply unwell. He needs treatment. The right pathway is a court-ordered conservatorship—where the city can mandate treatment and housing for people who cannot care for themselves. But here’s the problem: San Francisco doesn’t have enough locked treatment beds. These facilities provide 24/7 psychiatric care, nursing, and rehabilitation for people who cannot be safely left on their own. They are the only realistic solution for someone like this man, who has repeatedly refused to follow court orders and clearly cannot be left to wander the neighborhood unsupervised.

Supervisor Rafael Mandelman has been pushing hard on this issue for years. The city has even expanded conservatorship laws, thanks to SB 43, to include people with crippling drug addiction—not just severe mental illness. But the laws don’t matter if the infrastructure doesn’t exist. Mayor Daniel Lurie has also recognized this gap, committing to adding more treatment beds. But construction is slow, and labor politics have stalled progress. Some unions oppose converting unlocked treatment beds into locked ones, since it would mean their members must upskill to meet higher patient needs. The result is predictable: politics are being prioritized over public safety and compassion. 

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