It's easier to fool people than to convince them they have been fooled ...Mark Twain
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It was less than two years ago when I warned readers that the election of progressive Mayor De Blasio would result in NYC plunging into progressive hell. At this weekend's J'ouvert festival in NYC, two people were shot to death. There were also 4 shootings. This is the same festival where the former aid to NYS Gov. Andrew Cuomo was shot to death last year. Homelessness is out of control as are drug-fueled vagrants in many of the city's public parks.
Then there's another progressive controlled city---Chicago---where this year's homicide rate is already at 500. Thirteen people were murdered over the Labor Day Weekend. A total of 43 people were shot. The murders exceeded last year's Labor Day Weekend by 5. But if you think those stats are disturbing, consider this. In August alone, 472 people were reported shot. The murder rate is up 72%, shootings up 88%. In fact, more people have been murdered in Chicago than the number of troops we've lost in Iraq and Afghanistan in the last 15 years. Rahm Emanuel, the mayor of Chicago, is the former Chief of Staff to Mr. Obama.
All of this and more is repeated in many American cities today, especially those run by progressive democrats. And yet, they all refuse to accept the fact that law-abiding citizens of every race and ethnicity are not the problem. Consider most of these cities have some of the most strict gun laws in America. The answer is not a mystery. Criminals, in general, are not deterred by laws or even police. But when the hands of our police officers are tied, criminals know it's party time. Curtis Sliva, founder of the Guardian Angels, said it best: "...gangs realize there is no enforcement {referring to the De Blasio administration ordering the NYPD to be armed bystanders}, and they had taken control of the streets by 3 a.m. {at the festival this past weekend}...The cops had been told once again: Don't intervene."
The other, and perhaps more disturbing aspect of this rise in crime, is the existence of the Black Lives Matter movement---a movement started and based on a false narrative. While they focus entirely on police misuse of force against blacks (that's undeniable but not pervasive as they want us to think), they completely neglect the real problem---black on black crime.
Let's review some facts. While I'm on Chicago, did you know that 80% of all known murder suspects in 2015 were black? Whites, on the other hand, made up 0.9% of known murder suspects in Chicago that same year. In NYC, blacks committed three-quarters of all shootings. They make up 23% of the city's population. In the country as a whole, blacks make up 57% of all murder defendants.
Last year, the left-leaning Washington Post reported on their own study. They reported 965 people were killed by police in 2015, White police officers shooting unarmed black men accounted for less than 4% of fatal shootings. The majority of those killed by cops were brandishing weapons, were mentally ill or suicidal. Almost 30% of police shootings were the result of car chases that began with a minor traffic stop. By the way, of those 965 killed by cops, 90 were unarmed and a majority of those were white.
It's clear. Policing is a function of crime. It's police officers trying to stop the crime. But as Michael Goodwin of The NY Post pointed out recently, police presence only matters if that presence is backed up by the power of arrest.
In summary, the police are not to blame for the rise in crime. That blame rests solely on the shoulders of politicians running the cities and the criminals breaking the laws. Progressive politicians---along with their enablers like Black Lives Matter---want to disarm the cops and just turn them into bystanders. As long as this toxic ideology persists, we will continue to see more cities like Chicago in our future.
Sources: DOJ, USA Today, NY Post, Chicago PD, City Data
Sources: DOJ, USA Today, NY Post, Chicago PD, City Data
