I don't want to be contrarian for the sake of it, but the fact that by luck the guy physically stalking you and immobilizing you happened to back down isn't really convincing me of the safety of SF or alleys.
If being street smart means "try to stay calm when possibly about to be stabbed and killed", I think I'll skip that lecture. I'd prefer if street smarts included how not to let a drugged up guy not get behind you and near you. And how to get out of a bear hug by a drugged up guy. Because "hoping he is nice" doesn't sound like a plan to me.
Being calm and always treating people as humans give you a super power of being able to defuse situations and achieve tactical supremacy. Anger meets anger. True in actually scary east coast cities and true in the noble if slightly flawed gem of San Francisco.
But the article here is how this was some conflict between friends, so the city doesn’t really matter. All the fearful people should be reassured by this outcome. Manage your domestic life well for good safety outcomes.
If you've already got a drugged up person with their arms around you, I don't think "kind words" will help you unless you got lucky and met a kind stranger of ecstacy. By pure luck this worked. Most times, when you have a druggy grabbing you from the back, it won't go so nicely IMO.
The way things work in "ghetto logic" is a guy from the ghetto will kill you for "disrespecting." So instead you act friendly, unafraid, and respectful and that's good enough for them to want to go mug someone else.
If you want to get a good feel for San Francisco ghetto logic, or ghetto logic in general, I recommend the excellent, but hard to get a hold of documentary, "Straight Outta Hunter's Point" (2003).
