Mountain View has never been crime free, but for many years we didn't have even one murder in our great city. Now however, violent attacks are becoming the norm and I am very concerned that eventually, major crimes will become the norm here also.

In my opinion, the reason that this will happen has nothing to do with race, religion, changing demographics, or other irrelevant physical or group characteristics and everything to do with numbers. Rapid, uncontrolled growth is always a recipe for disaster in a city of any size; but for a city the size of Mountain View, with it's many years of stability and slow growth, that problem is exacerbated.

Many people have been criticized for wanting to slow the building of new housing and new offices in the city so that the city has time to assimilate the new numbers. Others have wanted to build as quickly and as fast as possible (because after all, there's money to be made and who cares about history and community?).

It is a fact that the larger a city becomes, the more likely is to suffer from violent crime. In small towns where everyone know each other, major crimes are rare. In big cities they are generally a daily occurrence because the cities are too dynamic for everyone to have a real sense of community and to get to really know most of the people who live there.

The faster Mountain View grows, I believe that we will see more, as well as more frequent violent crime taking place here. During my campaign, I was not against growth, but I was for well managed growth. It is the city's responsibility to grow only as fast as the community can assimilate the new additions and irresponsible to do otherwise.

How do you know when a city is growing too quickly? You get spikes in violent crime, homelessness, hunger and other issues associated with poverty. I know that some will say 'Wait! You get the same thing with high unemployment!'. Well yes, that is true, but high unemployment is not a factor in the Bay Area. We also have the correlation between the explosive growth of offices and new stack and pack housing in the last few years and the increased number and severity of violent incidents.

That being said, the attacker is fully responsible for what he did and should be punished accordingly. I also feel a great deal of sympathy for the family of the victim. It is my hope that the city will take a look at this incident in order to find ways to keep similar incident from occurring in the future.

I remember a time when I knew everyone who lived within two blocks of me. We would speak to each other at least once a week, and in some cases every day. We would go to each other's parties, we knew each other's kids and birthdays. Ah the good old days! I miss 2013!........


Jim Neal
Old Mountain View

Wait! Going from zero to one is not a spike.

6:30PM in a courtyard in front of the performing arts center, downtown and no gun or knife involved. And no one else could step in and try to prevent this? They had to wait for the po po to arrive? Where have all the cowboys gone? How many millenials walked by looking at their cell phone? It reminds me of the NY central park gang rape many years ago.

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Mark - I'd like to point out that the article said even a baton and taser didn't bring this guy down.

In this case, I'm not sure attacking the attacker would have done any good other than resulting in more injuries.

(I'm not saying a group of 5-10 people working together couldn't have stopped him, but they would have to have acted in a highly coordinated manner.)

In addition, all of these people would have had to be independent in order to act (for example, not have to worry about a child in their care). In theory, if I was taking care of my kid and saw something like this happening, I could have witnessed from a distance and called police but would have felt unable to act so as to keep my child more safe.

55 isn't exactly elderly. And, if someone is in some sort of crazed frenzy - which it sound like this attacker was - I'm not sure I would jump in myself. A baton was used initially to try and subdue him and finally he was tazed, and while being tazed he was still behaving extremely aggressively - apparently biting at the victims neck. That seems extremely aggressive and completely out of control.

I have little doubt that anyone who witnessed the attack was horrified and perhaps terrified at what they were witnessing.

I wouldn't be so quick to judge or blame any witnesses for being unable - or too scared - to physically intervene in the middle of such a violent attack.

It's easy to pontificate about how we would/should act as a witness, but until we are actually in that situation I would be loathe to judge.

I have a close personal friend who was brutally murdered. Thankfully, I did not witness it, but I have zero compassion for those who covered for the murderer for years. Zero.

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one murder every 4 years or so, for a city of 75000. We are doing fine.

The police should have shot the suspect. The fact that he was allowed to continue attacking the victim with lethal force after refusing to obey verbal commands is more than justification.

@Rolling Eyes - Maybe you should talk to the family and friends of the man who was murdered and ask them how many is too many! How incredibly insensitive!

@LOL - What a shock, more personal insults. I am sure that most people understood my point that because of all the changes, many people have been forced to move out of Mountain View and/or have been evicted or are homeless because they can no longer afford the high rents. For those who are very wealthy, perhaps they haven't had any changes at all where they live.

@Dave - Thanks! You just helped me win a bet on how long it would take for someone to either libel me for committing the murder or try to associate me with the murderer somehow because we share the same last name. For the record, I am unrelated to Jan Neal. Also, I'm pretty sure that people arrested for murder usually don't have time or the ability to make comments in online publications.



Jim Neal
Old Mountain View

@Steve Old Town:

"The police should have shot the suspect."

It was a judgment call by the police.

6:30pm on that day was about 25 minutes after sunset, so already pretty dark to be shooting around with lots of people in the area. A performance was taking place at the time at the Center for the Performing Arts as well.

The risk of a bullet hitting an innocent bystander was likely very high.

Anyhow, I'm sorry to hear that the victim succumbed from his injuries.

It is surprising that this is the first homocide in Mountain View since 2014. It seems like hardly a week goes by without a stabbing, a shooting, or an attempted murder of one sort or another in this city.

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In reading some of the comments here, I am truly stunned that it appears that some people are completely unconcerned and unaffected by the fact that someone actually was murdered here in our city. Perhaps that is reflective of the changes that I was referring to where people are no longer connected to one another as they once were. However, even if that is so, I would think that for everyone, human life would still have meaning, even if the person is a complete stranger.

I can also see both sides of the argument as to whether or not someone should have tried to intervene. For most of us, there is a strong instinct to step in when we see a defenseless person continue to be brutally assaulted, but on the other hand we have the press and elected officials telling us that only the police should protect us as well as the fact that if one does get involved, when the police do arrive, are they necessarily going to know who did what?

While some people would much rather focus on distractions from this tragic event, I hope that those who truly care about Mountain View and it's future will use this incident to really think about what they would do and what they would want someone else to do if someone they loved or cared about was being brutally assaulted. Sometimes there is nothing you can do, sometimes all you can do is call 911, and sometimes you have to take action. Knowing what to do and when can make a difference between life and death.


Jim Neal
Old Mountain View

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