DON’T BLAME “BLACK LIVES MATTER” FOR TODAY’S INCREASED CRIME

…The shooting of Trayvon Martin began what became the “Black Lives Matter” movement

 

The “Ferguson Effect” came about because of the actions of the Ferguson, MO. Police Dept.

 

 

I recently read an article adapted from a speech by Heather Mac Donald at the conservative educational institute, Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Michigan.  The aforementioned Ms. Mac Donald is an author of books on law & order such as Are Cops Racists, The War on Cops, and How The New Attack on Law and Order Makes Everyone Less Safe. She also writes articles for the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and The New Criterion.

 

Ms. Mac Donald’s articles focus is that back in mid to late 1990’s in New York, the NYPD embraced the idea that police could actually prevent crime.  They then developed a program called Compstat.  This program created a sense of urgency for the police commanders approach to fighting crime.  Prior to Compstat, the rap against the police was that they ignored the crime in the minority neighborhoods.  Compstst instead kept the focus on where the people were being victimized the most.  Of course, that was in all those minority communities.

 

The shortened version of the story is that due to this focus of the police commanders, amazing positive results occurred.

 

As an example of those results, in 1990, there were 2,245 homicides in New York City.  In 2014, there were only 333 homicides, a decrease of 85%. The drop in the New York Crime Rate was a historic rate drop.  The statement was made at the time that “over 10,000 minority male lives in New York would be dead if the homicide rate would have stayed at the 1990 rate”.

 

Pretty impressive, right?

 

So, what’s my problem?

 

Well, Ms. Mac Donald is now saying that all of those positive results are pretty much going down the drain.  And she’s blaming that on what is referred to as the “Ferguson Effect”.

 

The Ferguson Effect is the response from the Black Community after the unarmed teen, Michael Brown was shot and killed by a Ferguson, Missouri, Police Officer.  This was the killing of a young black man that she says started what has since become the Black Lives Matter movement.

 

From that point on in her article, Ms. Mac Donald pretty much goes on to say that because of the Black Lives Matter movement, all those positives that came from programs like Compstat, those positives have disappeared.  The issue as she sees it is that the crime rate is now increasing again and that the police are hesitating to use force against the offenders for fear of being charged with racism.

 

Well, I have also been following the events of the killings of young blacks over past decade and I have a very different point-of-view. 

 

Don’t get me wrong, I agree that Ms. Mac Donald’s numbers and statistics are probably correct, and I don’t disagree that things today are headed in the wrong direction.  But I don’t think that these changes are due to the negative effects of the Black Live Matter movement.

 

I personally think it all started on February 26, 2012.  That was the day that a neighborhood security patrol volunteer in a Florida community named George Zimmerman, shot and killed an unarmed teenager, Trayvon Martin, carrying only Skittles and ice tea.

 

Ever since that day, there have been the following deaths of the blacks that have since become the focus of the Black Lives Matter movement.

 

·       Dontre Hamilton, shot 14 times on 4/30/2014

 

·       Eric Garner, choked to death by NYC police for selling single cigarettes, 7/17/2014

 

·       John Crawford, Shot in a Walmart while holding a toy gun on 8/5/2014

 

·       Michael Brown, Unarmed teen shot by Ferguson, MO police on 8/9/2014

 

·       Ezelle Ford, Mentally ill man shot in the back in Cal. on 8/11/2014

 

·       Dante Parker, killed by being repeatedly stunned on 8/12/2014

 

·       Tanisha Anderson, bi-polar disorder woman killed in Cleveland by bashing her head against pavement on 11/11/2014

 

·       Akai Gurly, accidental police gun discharge killed in stairwell in NYC on 11/20/2014

 

·       Tamir Rice, 12 year old killed on Cleveland playground while playing with toy gun on 11/22/2014

 

·       Rumain Brison, killed in Phoenix when pill bottle mistook for gun

 

·       Jermane Reid, killed in New Jersey getting out of car

 

·       Tony Robinson, Shot in his Wisconsin apartment on 3/6/2015

 

·       Walter Scott, shot in the back in S. Carolina while running away

 

·       Freddie Gray, shackled and hand cuffed and died in rough ride in back of police van to jail 4/19/15

 

·       Laquan McDonald, unarmed and shot down on Chicago street on 10/20/2014

 

If Ms. Mac Donald wants to understand why the police today are being harassed by the Black Live Matter movement, she may want to take a closer look at these events.

 

She says today that “black-on-black” crime is a much larger issue than that of police racism.  I don’t disagree with those conclusions, but I don’t think that having an issue that’s more severe than police malfeasance makes the problems in dealing with law enforcement a non-issue.

 

The majority of the deaths that I have listed above should not have occurred.  Unfortunately, this list is not the total list of the blacks that have lost their lives to a police bullet, and they won’t be the last.

 

But at some point these deaths via law enforcement has got to stop.

 

Copyright G.Ater  2016