Percentage homicide statistics in the US were at a record last year. In 57 large and medium-sized cities of the country, this indicator jumped by an average of 37 percent. But this is only on average.
And here is the picture in the record-breaking metropolitan areas: Milwaukee – 95%, Louisville – 78%, Seattle – 74%. Minneapolis 72%, New Orleans 62%, Atlanta 58%. On May 31, 18 people were shot dead in Chicago in one day – a historic maximum in the last six decades.
The number of young children killed in shooting incidents at home in their cribs or in the yard, in strollers on the street, in shopping malls, in their parent’s car is astounding: 55 in Chicago, 17 in St. Louis, 11 in Philadelphia; 40 were injured of varying severity in Los Angeles.
Left-wing politicians and their press blame the trend on the socio-economic and psychological consequences of the COVID-19 epidemic. Stress, frustration, rage. However, chroniclers from the Manhattan Institute in New York paint a different picture: in the first months of the quarantine lockdown, crime not only did not increase, but even decreased both in the United States and in the civilized world as a whole. The vector changed only in May … and only in the United States, with their signature practice of shooting from passing cars. The trigger for the bloodshed, so to speak, was the death of the African American George Floyd in Minneapolis. All dogs were hanged by police officers, accused of racism. They started shooting at the cops, setting fire to their cars, throwing explosive devices at police institutions. The democrats did not provide the law enforcement officers with the proper moral support, the law enforcement agencies, including the prosecutor’s office and the courts, were demoralized. Conditions were formed that were most conducive to the rampant of crime: both the criminal element got loose, and the keepers of order began to be afraid to be active, so as not to end up on a forced retirement ahead of time. Or worse.
A minimum of initiative is the optimal strategy. In Minneapolis, the number of arrests and, in general, contacts of all types of police officers with citizens fell by exactly half over the summer. A similar story was observed in Oakland, New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Chicago. Special police units were disbanded, engaged in the preemptive confiscation of illegally stored weapons from individuals, since such events allegedly disproportionately affect the Negro population. For the same reason, the police ignore all kinds of domestic offenses. Then the chain unfolds absolutely logically: the likelihood of preventive detention of members of armed gangs has decreased, so they more often use their “guns”, killing each other, and at the same time innocent passers-by. Such factors as material deprivation and psychological stress, about which the mayor of “Windy City” Laurie Lightfoot likes to repeat, have nothing to do with it.
The surge in criminality is not limited to murders, in many cities and even suburbs, for example, cases of car theft have multiplied.
What can we expect from the Biden administration in terms of fighting crime? Nothing good, says expert Heather MacDonald of the Manhattan Institute. The President declares his desire to put an end to manifestations of racism in the police and the judiciary. If racism, like Biden, is understood as racial differences in the statistics of arrests, arrests, convictions, then, MacDonald is convinced, you can get rid of them only by first getting rid of the law enforcement agencies as such.
In 2020, police shot 15 “unarmed” blacks and 21 “unarmed” whites. It is curious how the Washington Post, the organ of the progressive intelligentsia, defines “disarmament”: if a criminal hiding from pursuit in a stolen car steals another car during a chase, threatens with police weapons or fiercely resists arresting them, but does not shoot at them then well-meaning journalists qualify him as “unarmed”. Notwithstanding all of the above, 15 “unarmed” blacks shot by cops represent 0.17% of all violent African American deaths in 2020.
This year in Minneapolis, Atlanta, Louisville, Rochester, high-profile trials will take place over police officers accused of murdering blacks. If they are acquitted, then America can expect new unrest. And more bloodshed.
BETWEEN: Minneapolis is going to spend $ 6.4 million on replenishing the ranks of the police, despite the fact that many city councilors and public organizations in the city have been demanding that the police as a class be virtually eliminated since the death of George Floyd. The activists are funded in part by George Soros.
Minneapolis is a hotbed of left-wing radicalism, hit hard by the riots last summer. The number of police officers there has decreased by 200 people, today there are only 638. After the riots associated with the death of Floyd, an unprecedented number of police officers left or took long-term sick leave. If the proposal for funding passes the Legislative Assembly, the staff of law enforcement officers will increase by 36 units.
The trial of Minneapolis cop Derek Chauvin, accused of Floyd’s manslaughter, opens on March 8. The trial of three of his colleagues, who are accused of complicity in the murder, will begin in August.
Newspaper headline:
Crime wave in America