6 days ago
‘Last Night in San Francisco' examines Bob Lee killing and San Francisco myths
For the past two years, reporter Scott Alan Lucas has dedicated many of his waking hours to deciphering the tragic death of renowned software engineer Bob Lee.
The fatal stabbing of the Cash app founder quickly sparked speculation falsely linking the attack to a non-existent surge in violent crime among San Francisco's unhoused population.
His book 'Last Night in San Francisco' is a carefully considered examination of three central subjects: victim Bob Lee, alleged perpetrator Nima Momeni and the wildly inaccurate perceptions about San Francisco their case inspired.
Originating as an assignment from his editor at the Information, a subscription-based online publication focused on technology and business news, Lucas admits that his initial reaction to being asked to cover the case in the spring of 2023 was lukewarm at best.
'I was working on something else about AI in Los Angeles,' he recalled. 'I was getting ready to go down to Hollywood for a conference when I got an email from my editor saying he really needed something on the Bob Lee killing.'
The San Francisco native, who rarely covered crime, nonetheless reported on the case and subsequent trial of Nima Momeni, the Emeryville tech consultant whose sister, Khazar Momeni, was possibly romantically involved with Lee.
That reporting would eventually inspire Lucas to write a book that goes beyond the headlines to examine both the killing and the wild minsconceptions of the city in which the crime occurred.
Early speculation, often shared from the comfort of podcast studios, suggested Lee was the victim of a mugging, by a stranger suffering a mental health crisis or as a result of his own drug use. None of that proved true. What Lucas instead uncovers is a tragic story about an irrationally protective sibling and a genius engineer who seemed equally happy writing code for days on end and partying with Dave Chappelle.
During a recent phone call with the Chronicle, Lucas discussed his experience covering Momeni's trial and elucidated on the shortcomings of parajournalistic media in an age of disinformation.
In 2024, Momeni was found guilty of second-degree murder. His sentencing is currently set to take place later this month in San Francisco.
Q: What was it like to be in the center of the vortex of this massively confusing and constantly covered crime?
A: The vortex came and went a few times. People were raising the possibility of someone dealing with a mental illness or some kind of psychosis, but the statistics on those are astronomically small. I even went so far as to talk to two criminologists who had written a paper about homicide rates in San Francisco to really get a sense of the actual truth.
Q: Where was the disinformation about the Lee case coming from, in your opinion?
A: The 'All In' podcast guys — people who claim to be very data driven and factually oriented — made claims based on very poor interpretations when the data was very easy to find.
We all bring our own ideological lenses to the stories we think are important. I do that. You do that. Everyone does that. But that's not to say that these things can't be fact-checked.
I tried to tell a story that was based on getting to know the people at the center of it — seeing them during the trial, talking to people who knew Bob and Nima, and talking about the city it all took place in.
Q: Do you feel there's somewhat of an obsession with San Francisco from afar?
A: It's too cute to say San Francisco is a character in this book. But going back even prior to the Gold Rush, something about San Francisco has really captured the imagination of the rest of the United States and, frankly, the world. It's a place where people are supposed to be able to come and make these amazing fortunes, and it's also a place where routine violence is supposedly visited upon us in ways that are perhaps not imaginable in other cities.
The truth is that San Francisco's public safety rises and falls with the rest of the country. We're just not that exceptional. It can be hard to push that argument because people want the razzle dazzle.
Q: Rather than being a whodunit, would you say this case is more of a whydunit?
A: Yeah. (Slovenian philosopher) Slavoj Žižek has a line about capitalism being a 'perpetual orgasm.' Which is to say, it's good at first, and then after a while, you're like, 'I can't keep up with this.' To me, that feels like the arc of Bob's life.
Bob had this perpetual energy. In many ways, that was very good for him and very good for society. He built some interesting, important stuff. But it also clearly eroded him. It weighed him down.
Q: And what do you ultimately make of Nima Momeni?
A: Nima was a little more elusive to understand for me. There's some stuff that's just not available because of the trial, and he's got appeals, plus there's a civil suit, so there's a bit of a black hole there. There's also a real lacuna at the center of this narrative, which is that the video cameras don't show what happened and there are no eyewitnesses other than the person on trial.
In the course of the trial, claims have been put forward that Nima and his sister were abused by their father at a young age, and that's why the family fled Iran, eventually landing in the United States. If that's true, then this is someone who has suffered harm and then has visited harms upon others and that just makes me sad.
I don't have sympathy for the actions, whatever they were, but I do have a lot of sympathy for the course both of their lives took and how they potentially could have gone differently.
