SAN FRANCISCO, July 8 (Xinhua) -- A group of Asian Americans on Monday rallied in front of San Francisco City Hall to call for creating a better, safer social order and stricter law enforcement to crack down on crime in the city.
The demonstrators criticized the city government for doing not enough to guarantee a good social order and failure to take proper law-enforcing measures against offensive behaviors and crime that threaten the safety of local residents.
"There is feces on our street and there are homeless on our streets... there are cars being broken into every day. There are people abused on our streets," said Paul Taylor, a 76-year old volunteer among the demonstrators.
Taylor said he is not satisfied about the performance of San Francisco Mayor London Breed, noting the city government has failed to keep a clean city for San Franciscans and the high rate of car-broken crimes and filthy urban environment have turned away tourists around the world.
"I've lived in San Francisco for most of my life and the city is no longer what I knew it was before," he added.
In San Francisco, smash-and-grab automobile break-ins have been at epidemic levels in recent years.
In June this year alone, 1,864 vehicle break-ins were reported, or roughly 62 per day, according to data of the San Francisco Police Department.
Wendy Wong, spokesperson for the San Francisco Coalition for Good Neighborhoods, told Xinhua that they came here to have the voice of Asian American, particularly Chinese Americans, heard.
"We cannot tolerate rising crime on the streets any longer. We have no sense of security and we want the government doing right things. We want stricter enforcement of law to crack down on crime," Wang said, citing the example of a 74-year-old woman who was kidnapped and raped in an area near a tranquil neighborhood in San Francisco in May this year.
"Such an abhorring crime occurred in broad daylight, and it was horrifying for people living in San Francisco city," she said, holding a picture of the victim lying in a hospital bed.
Most of the demonstrators were supporters of Ellen Lee Zhou, a female Chinese American candidate running for the next mayor of San Francisco.
The protesters said they will vote for Zhou for her promise to make a "safe and clean" San Francisco.
Breed, the sitting San Francisco mayor, has also announced her plan to seek re-election. She has spent a lot of time on addressing the city's pressing problems such as crime and homeless people since she took office last year.
Breed has promised to build about 1,000 affordable houses for the homeless by 2020.
