";s:4:"text";s:5232:"Back in the 1990s, “People want closure and they want accountability,” Breed said. "It is a collaborative approach toward keeping the numbers down and hopefully getting to a better place over time. Killings Discovery. Hudson’s twin, Gary (right), is a teammate.Guy Hudson, a crisis manager with Street Violence Intervention Program (SVIP), gives Charlie Connelly, 49, a hug as he and his team patrol the area on Mendell Street in San Francisco, Calif., on Thursday, January 2, 2020. SVIP has helped intervene in neighborhood trouble, driving down violence and homicides in San Francisco to an all time low in 2019. It's been patrolling Chinatown, where in recent weeks there have been a number of high-profile, high-violence incidents, including one in which an elderly man was beaten by a group of four to six much younger men, apparently unprovoked.
The bodies were discovered by a daughter and granddaughter of the elder slain couple. The San Francisco Police Reserve Officer Unit is composed of individuals who wish to provide community service and give back to the city they live or work in. There was plenty of bad news in 2019, but in the good news column the homicide count in San Francisco hit its lowest number since 1963: 41. With 41 killings this year, the homicide rate is down 11 percent over 2018, when there were 46.Violent crime was down 8 percent overall, compared to last year, and "I’m really proud of the work the city has done to invest in violence prevention programs," said Mayor London Breed, speaking to the Chronicle. The group is composed of police, community stakeholders and others who work to diffuse situations before they escalate.The city’s Street Violence Intervention Team members are among the first to respond when someone gets killed, and the program is credited by police and city leaders as a critical component of driving down violence.Team members — whose life stories often involve being caught up in the criminal justice system — counsel neighborhood residents and try to tamp down any potential retribution killings.But even before violence breaks out, they work to build relationships with young people and families in the city’s most challenged communities such as the Western Addition, Bayview-Hunters Point, Mission and Sunnydale.“It takes a village and that’s what we believe,” said Arturo Carrillo, the program’s director. San Francisco, though, saw a 3% decline in vehicle break-ins in 2019 compared with the previous year, according to the latest police statistics.The city’s decadelong drop in violent crime follows a national trend of declining violence in major cities. Email: Evan Sernoffsky is a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle specializing in criminal justice, crime and breaking news. She was born and raised in public housing in the city’s Western Addition, where violent crime was rampant, particularly among the neighborhood’s young African American men, she said.She recalled growing up hearing drive-by shootings and attending the funerals of classmates in high school.“I wanted to do something about changing it,” she said, describing her ascension from neighborhood advocate to supervisor to mayor. He’s covered some of the biggest Bay Area news stories in recent memory, including wildfires, mass shootings and criminal justice reform efforts in San Francisco. The SVIP team has been working Chinatown to increase it's presence there in an effort to prevent any further violence.James Caldwell, Crisis Response Manager, Street Violence Intervention Program (SVIP), left, hugs Sha'Dae Jasper, a level three outreach worker with SVIP, and they patrol the area on Mendell Street in San Francisco, Calif., on Thursday, January 2, 2020. Guy Hudson, a crisis manager with S.F.’s Street Violence Intervention Team, wipes his eyes while he remembers a young man he mentored, Matthew Higginbotham, 23, who was fatally shot in Hunters Point in July 2018.James Caldwell of the Street Violence team hugs community organizer Sasanna Yee with teammate Victor Jones nearby.Guy Hudson of the Street Violence team (left) hands Charlie Connelly cash for food. SVIP has helped intervene in neighborhood trouble, driving down violence and homicides in San Francisco to an all time low in 2019. San Francisco police are investigating after a woman was shot to death in the Tenderloin district, the department said early Sunday. As recently as 2007 the city counted around 100 homicides per year, and back in 1993 there were 129 murders in a single year. “We don’t want retaliation.