boosts

Last night my car window was broken and my book bag taken as I was eating dinner in SOMA. Bummer. Like any curious medical student, I started almost compulsively googling some background reading and found that these car burglaries or "smash and grab" crimes (known as "boosts") are way too common in San Francisco, with an average of 41 incidents per day in the city!

Many medical students have experienced car burglaries even in the Sunset, which is relatively safe, and some have had their cars stolen. It's like owning a bicycle in college....it WILL get stolen! Accepting these crimes as a fact of life is frustrating.

Interestingly, after a campaign to crack down on car burglaries, the police reported that "the team has arrested 34 people, according to department spokesman Sgt. Steve Mannina, which has contributed to a 22 percent drop in incidents reported between October of this year and October 2006."

"By arresting one person, we prevent at least 10 to 20 [break-ins] per week,” Lazar said. “One person doesn’t break into just one car. They move on and target more.”

This week, my car window got broken and I lost all of my psychiatry materials.

Last week, a psychiatric patient escaped from the hospital under my supervision...but he came back six hours later to "get his stuff back"!

Sigh.