Night market in San Francisco's Chinatown marks ten years of police outreach
As San Francisco's Chinatown held its tenth night market event Wednesday evening, members of the community said they still feel some lingering safety concerns in the city.
Leaders in San Francisco say the city is seeing a decline in violent property crimes in the first quarter of this year, but some residents say that decrease isn't changing how they feel about crime.
Wednesday night, the city held its tenth annual Chinatown Night Out. A decade ago, the police department realized this community needed an event of its own to build relationships here.
Some say it has helped, but more needs to be done.
It was packed at Portsmouth Square in Chinatown as the community celebrated this annual event. Vanita Louie has deep roots in Chinatown with her grandparents owning a candy store for 50 years.
She says people, especially seniors, are starting to come out again after a rash of attacks just a couple of years ago.
"We were very fearful. We restricted ourselves from doing a whole lot of things," said Louie.
Louie says seniors are less fearful now thanks to programs put in place by the city. One of them is the Ambassador program where retired police officers walk the streets.
"Make sure they feel safer here. I speak the language, so it helps that they're comfortable to come approach us. I have a lot of people who don't like calling the police and they call me. That's not what I'm trying to advocate. I'm trying to tell you we're your eyes and ears. We're just trying to help the community out," said community Ambassador Stewart Ng.
Ng says for him, it's been rewarding to come back home and help the community he was raised in.
"They really like us, they know somebody is out there to watch over them. That's the big thing. We want to let them know that we're out there to help," he said.
Along with the Ambassador program, District Attorney Brooke Jenkins also took steps to protect the AAPI community when she took office 2 1/2 years ago. Establishing a vulnerable victim's unit that focused on violent attacks on seniors and creating a bilingual team to help the victims.
"These seniors in this community needed to know that I cared. I was committed to making sure we addressed what was going on. To reassure them and make sure they reported to us what was happening and I think that has made a world of difference," said District Attorney Jenkins.
While seniors are feeling safer, Louie says it's the businesses that are now hurting the most.
"There are still bad people that are coming into Chinatown and having burglaries and shopkeepers don't feel safe. There is still a lot of fear," she said.