When Bob Lee, a 43-year-old technology executive, was stabbed to death in the small hours of the morning on a San Francisco street, it looked like a brutal instance of the Californian city’s urban decay.
Commentators including Elon Musk said the case was yet another example of “horrific” crime in the city and others said they feared for their safety.
The story quickly unravelled, however. Lee was attacked in a relatively quiet part of town and, despite its problems with theft and open-air drug use, the city’s murder rate is relatively low.