Video of a young woman living in San Francisco saying she'd been spat on and threatened with rape by a stranger, and never feels safe in the city, has gone viral on social media.
The footage was posted on TikTok by graphic designer Hannah Ayla on Monday, where it received more than 1.1 million views. In subsequent videos, Ayla responded to another TikTok user who said she "got what you voted for," and described her attacker as a "well groomed white man."
San Francisco has suffered from a major crime wave over the last few years, with a number of prominent retailers leaving the city citing the crime rate and threats to staff. This has fueled a wider debate about law and order in major Democratic run cities, and over whether efforts to "Defund the Police" following the murder of George Floyd facilitated a surge in criminality.
In the year to July 2022, the population of California fell by 0.3 percent, with other liberal strongholds such as New York and Oregon declining by 0.9 and 0.4 percent, according to U.S. census data. By comparison, the traditionally Republican states of Florida, Texas and Arizona all saw sharp increases in their populations.

Ayla looked visibly upset in her first TikTok video, in which she said: "I'm literally shaking right now I was just getting groceries and I live in San Francisco and I never really feel fully safe, if you live in San Francisco I'm sure you know what I'm talking about, and I just got groceries, I'm walking out of the store and this guy's walking past me and says move you stupid b***** and he spits in my face, spits all over my face.
"Then I say 'excuse me did you just spit in my face' and he says 'move or I'll rape you'...if you live in San Francisco do you feel this way all the time? I don't feel safe ever. I literally never feel safe."
The post received more than 6,700 replies, many from other women saying they felt unsafe in San Francisco.
One woman wrote: "Yeahhhhhh when I went to SF our car got broken into and when I called the police they literally said 'welcome to SF' and hung up. Booked a flight home."
Another said: "I literally had a cop pull up to me at a gas station to tell me I was endangering myself by being out at night in SF."
A third commented: "Literally moved after one year worst place on the planet to live as a woman- come to the east coast girlie it changed my life!!"
Ayla's video was reposted to X, formerly Twitter by Kyle Kashuv, an influencer with more than 307,000 followers, who wrote: "It doesn't have to be this way San Francisco."
It doesn’t have to be this way San Francisco pic.twitter.com/p9acK4zgPo
— Kyle Kashuv (@KyleKashuv) August 7, 2023
This video was widely shared, receiving over 3.9 million views on X.
In a second TikTok clip, Ayla responded to another user who said: "You get what you vote for."
She said: "I'm getting so many comments...about how I deserve this because I voted blue...all these videos are basically saying I deserved this because I live in a liberal city.
"I really hope that people watching this video can understand that what I'm saying is that regardless of if you vote red and I vote blue, if you vote blue and I vote red, no one deserves to be assaulted or harassed in the street."
In a third video Ayla, replied to another TikTok user who, referring to her attacker, asked: "He was Black wasn't he?"
She said: "No—it was a very well dressed and well-groomed white man. Also this is incredibly racist and you will be blocked now."
Newsweek has reached out to Hannah Ayla for comment via Instagram message.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
James Bickerton is a Newsweek U.S. News reporter based in London, U.K. His focus is covering U.S. politics and world ... Read more