Charles Barkley Calls Out San Francisco

This year’s NBA All-Star Game will take place on February 16 at the Chase Center in San Francisco, but NBA hall-of-famer Charles Barkley won’t be attending. As the TNT commentator explained, “I’m not going to that rat-infested place out in San Francisco,” a city where “you can’t even walk around down there.” 

Draymond Green of the Golden State Warriors countered, “Yes, you can walk around.” Barkeley responded, “Yeah, with a bulletproof vest.” One athlete who might agree with Barkeley is Ricky Pearsall, the San Francisco 49ers’ first-round draft choice.

Last August 31, the wide receiver attended an autograph session in downtown San Francisco where a man demanded his watch. Pearsall refused to give it up and in the ensuing struggle, the assailant shot Pearsall in the chest. Incredibly enough, the bullet passed through his body, hitting no vital organs, and Pearsall was able to walk to the ambulance. 

The shooter was described as a 17-year-old high school student from Tracy, about 70 miles inland, but in a video, the attacker looks like a full-grown man. The shooter’s name and booking photo were not released. At this writing, no new information or court proceedings have been reported. 

As Charles Barkley and Ricky Pearsall’s family should know, Proposition 57, the Public Safety and Rehabilitation Act of 2016, eliminated the direct filing of juvenile cases in adult court. The state Supreme Court ruled it retroactive to all cases that were not yet final. 

Others who might agree with Charles Barkley include Kate Steinle’s family and friends. 

On July 1, 2015, the 32-year-old was walking with her father and a friend on San Francisco’s Pier 14 when Jose Inez Garcia Zarate, a previously deported Mexican national, discharged a firearm. The bullet struck Steinle, who died at the scene. 

In November of 2017, a San Francisco jury found Garcia Zarate not guilty of the murder of Kate Steinle. The jury also acquitted the shooter on a manslaughter charge and found him guilty only of felony possession of a firearm. 

In 2020, federal judge Vince Chhabria ruled that Garcia Zarate suffered from a “mental illness that is not presently being treated” and was therefore incompetent to stand trial on federal gun charges. In March 2022, Garcia Zarate pleaded guilty to “being a felon in possession of a firearm and to being an alien unlawfully present in this country in possession of a firearm.” 

As Charles Barkley should know, dangerous felons are hardly San Francisco’s only problems. By 2019, San Francisco was something of an open-air latrine, with maps marking out favored defecation zones. 

In 2023, Gov. Gavin Newsom, a former mayor, cleaned up San Francisco for the visit of China’s Communist dictator Xi Jinping. The city quickly reverted to the sort of conditions Charles Barkley now decries, particularly the need for a bulletproof vest.

Under Senate Bill 1391, signed by Gov. Jerry Brown in 2018, any person under age 16 could commit any number of murders and be prosecuted only in juvenile court and gain release at age 25. To adopt a phrase from Scott McKenzie’s 1967 hit, all those who come to San Francisco should know that public safety and hygiene are not top priorities for California’s ruling class.

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