Police have arrested a man in connection with the fatal stabbing of Bob Lee, a giant of the San Francisco tech community who founded Cash App, one of the most popular mobile payment apps in the world.
Mission Local was first to report that early Thursday, the San Francisco Police Department arrested a man in Emeryville, Calif., whom they believe stabbed and killed Lee, 43. Police told the outlet that the alleged killer purportedly knew Lee and is another tech executive.
The suspect’s name has not been released, though Mission Local reports he is the owner of an IT company. San Francisco Board President Aaron Peskin, who confirmed an arrest was made, said he was not told the suspect’s name.
Multiple police sources told the outlet that Lee’s death, in the early hours of April 4 in a deserted part of downtown San Francisco, was not a random attack or a robbery. They portrayed Lee and the suspect as being “familiar with one another.”
Local Fox affiliate KTVU spoke with Lee’s former wife, Krista Lee, who confirmed that an arrest has been made in her ex-husband’s death.
“This is the first step toward justice,” Krista said from their family home in Miami.
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Krista told KTVU that she believes her husband and the suspect knew each other, but is baffled by what could have potentially motivated the attack.
Mission Local reported that Lee and the man were driving together in downtown San Francisco early in the morning in a car registered to the man. Some kind of confrontation allegedly happened in the vehicle which continued when Lee exited the car.
Officers allege the man stabbed Lee multiple times with a knife. The supposed murder weapon was later recovered by police not far from where Lee’s unconscious body was found.
Krista told KTVU she was not aware of Lee and the man driving together.
Lee was fatally stabbed in the densely populated Rincon Hill neighbourhood of San Francisco, near Google’s office and Oracle Park, home to the San Francisco Giants. The neighbourhood is a mix of offices and modern condo buildings.
His death fuelled debate over public safety in San Francisco and its moribund downtown, which has not yet bounced back from the pandemic. Twitter owner Elon Musk took to the social media site to post that “violent crime in SF is horrific and even if attackers are caught, they are often released immediately” and tagged the city’s district attorney.
Thursday’s arrest calls into question this assumed narrative that Lee was a random victim of the city’s violent crime issues and street conditions.
Krista emphasized to KTVU that her former husband loved San Francisco and would have taken affront to people using his death as a way to paint the city as unsafe or to blame politicians for crime.
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