Arrest made in SF killing of Bob Lee — tech exec’s alleged killer additionally labored in tech
Mission Native is knowledgeable that the San Francisco Police Division early this morning made an arrest within the April 4 killing of tech government Bob Lee, following an operation undertaken exterior the town’s borders. The alleged killer additionally works in tech and is a person Lee purportedly knew.
We’re advised that police as we speak have been dispatched to Emeryville with a warrant to arrest a person named Nima Momeni. The title and Emeryville deal with SFPD officers traveled to correspond with this man, the proprietor of an organization known as Broaden IT.
A number of police sources have described the predawn knifing final week, which left the 43-year-old Lee useless in a abandoned part of downtown San Francisco, as neither a theft try nor a random assault.
Somewhat, Lee and Momeni have been portrayed by police as being conversant in each other. Within the wee hours of April 4, they have been purportedly driving collectively via downtown San Francisco in a automobile registered to the suspect.
Some method of confrontation allegedly commenced whereas each males have been within the automobile, and doubtlessly continued after Lee exited the automobile. Police allege that Momeni stabbed Lee a number of occasions with a knife that was recovered not removed from the spot on the 300 block of Principal Road to which officers initially responded.
This situation would clarify, partly, why Lee was strolling via a portion of Principal Road in which there’s little to no foot visitors at 2:30 a.m. That was one among a number of incongruous circumstances surrounding Lee’s violent demise, which law-enforcement sources, from the get-go felt made it removed from a simple or random crime.
However, a few of Lee’s fellow tech luminaries and a refrain of different influential voices portrayed this killing as half and parcel of a metropolis awash in violent crime and on a descent into additional chaos. Whereas Lee is one among a dozen murder victims in San Francisco this 12 months, his is the one killing that has garnered nationwide protection — or, normally, even cursory native protection.
San Francisco’s different murder victims in 2023 are Gavin Boston, 40; Irving Sanchez-Morales, 28; Carlos Romero Flores, 29; Maxwell Maltzman, 18; Demario Lockett, 44; Maxwell Mason, 29; Humberto Avila, 46; Gregory McFarland Jr, 36; Kareem Sims, 43; Debra Lynn Hord, 57; and Jermaine Reeves, 52.
The dozen homicides recorded in San Francisco as of April 13, 2023. Map by Will Jarrett. Basemap from Mapbox.
San Francisco is dwelling to a lot in the best way of seen public distress, unnerving road habits and overt drug use. Its property crime price has lengthy been excessive, and the police clearance price for property crimes has lengthy been minimal. However the metropolis’s violent crime price is at a near-historic low, and is decrease than most mid-to-large-sized cities.
Immediately’s arrest would seem to undermine the premise that Lee’s violent demise was as a result of road circumstances in San Francisco. If the police do have their man, this was not a theft gone unhealthy nor a motiveless assault by some random attacker, however an alleged grievance between males who knew each other, which the suspect purportedly escalated right into a deadly battle.
Homicides per 100,000 residents
Over the previous few years,
homicides did rise in San
Francisco – however they continue to be
low in comparison with
historic traits
Homicides per 100,000 residents
Over the previous few years,
homicides did rise in San
Francisco – however they continue to be
low in comparison with historic traits
Chart by Will Jarrett. Information from the California Department of Justice and the Census Bureau.
Lee’s demise, nonetheless, was packaged within the media and on social media right into a spotlight reel of current San Francisco misfortunes and crimes: giant teams of younger individuals brawling at Stonestown; the abrupt closure of the mid-market Entire Meals, leaving San Franciscans simply eight different Entire Meals inside metropolis limits; the extreme beating of former fireplace commissioner Don Carmignani within the Marina District, allegedly by belligerent homeless individuals — all of it provides as much as a sense of a metropolis coming undone.
This fashion of protection, nonetheless, doesn’t seize the precise lived expertise of the overwhelming majority of San Franciscans. It additionally omits doubtlessly mitigating particulars of the person occasions. Carmignani, for example, was brutally struck within the head with a metallic rod and hospitalized. However the lawyer for his alleged attacker claims that the previous fireplace commissioner first pepper-sprayed the homeless man accused of beating him — which definitely would colour this incident.
Of be aware, police sources say {that a} sequence of homeless individuals had beforehand been pepper-sprayed within the Marina District previous to this occasion.
The arrest within the Lee case is a breaking story. We are going to replace this text as quickly as attainable.