The Floyd Effect
Step back with me, if you will, to 2014. On August 9th of that year an officer involved shooting (OIS) rocked our nation much like the George Floyd incident rocks us now. The incident, which took place in Ferguson, Missouri, a satellite city in the St. Louis metropolitan area, involved Michael Brown, a black paranoid schizophrenic individual (he told friends that he heard “voices”), high on drugs, that was stopped by police for a convenience store robbery. During that incident, as established by Grand Jury testimony, Brown reached INTO police officer Darren Wilson’s squad car to TRY TO GET THE OFFICER’S GUN, and, by doing so, caused the gun to discharge thereby WOUNDING THE OFFICER. Brown then ran, but then apparently changed his mind and turned around to come at that officer again, perhaps trying to get the officer’s gun, for the SECOND time. At that point Officer Wilson discharged his weapon, fatally wounding Brown. Despite the criminal, dangerous and outrageous behavior on Brown’s part, leftist activists portrayed him as an “innocent victim” and Officer Wilson as a callous and racist murderer. Although Wilson was eventually exonerated by a grand jury, media and protestor attacks on his integrity and the integrity of the police in general left many of America’s police disheartened and disgusted. They felt, with considerable justification, that America no longer “had their backs.” As a consequence many police officers reduced the intensity of policing. A USA Today poll taken on January 11, 2017 found that, as a consequence of Ferguson, a shocking 72% of all police were RELUCTANT TO MAKE ARRESTS. Predictably, this reduction in policing resulted in increased crime. The Brennan Center For Justice projected a 14% higher murder rate in 2016 as a result of Ferguson. The Wall Street Journal found an increase in homicide rates for 16 of the nation’s 20 largest jurisdictions. The same study also found that gun murders OF police officers during that same interval were up an astonishing SIXTY EIGHT PERCENT! The statistics were so bad that liberal think tanks went crazy trying to “debunk” what they called the Ferguson “theory.” Try as they may, however, reality kept rearing its ugly face. Even studies carried out specifically to delegitimize the Ferguson Effect (for example, a study by University of South Florida published in Criminology and Public Policy) DID find statistically significant detrimental effects, although the authors took pains to characterize these statistically significant effects as “small.” Pew Research came to similar conclusions.
Looking, however, at vitriol now being directed at the police from nearly every quarter, I suspect that an even greater “Ferguson effect” will soon follow. Not only have there been demonstrations, insults and taunts aimed at the police, there have been physical assaults via rocks, bottles and other implements. At least two police officers were murdered (David Dorn in Saint Louis and Patrick Underwood in Oakland), and one paralyzed for life (Shay Mikalonis in Las Vegas). Amazingly, ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY OFFICERS WERE INJURED IN JUST THE CITY OF CHICAGO (Source: news.wttn.com, June 6, 2020)
Unlike the Ferguson Effect, where the police were demoralized and the intensity of policing was reduced, this time around I expect the response will be more dramatic. Demoralization will again be inevitable, but this time, I believe, we will see individuals leaving the force. Some of exodus will be through early retirement, medical retirements, and outright resignations. And who will replace them? Amid today’s poisonous atmosphere, who, in their right mind, would choose a career in law enforcement? Defunding or no defunding, the police presence in America is likely to decrease. And, if this takes place as I fear it will, it might even merit a new name to reflect the destructive effects it will have: the Floyd Effect.
If, ladies and gentlemen, the Floyd Effect continues unabated, anarchy and chaos will be just around the corner. Autonomous zones, like the one that already exists in Seattle, will crop up. Gangs and war lords will be ascendant. Extortion, which, again, is already taking place in Seattle’s “CapitolHill Autonomus Zone”, will become inevitable. Businesses and even private citizens will have to pay for their own “protection.” American prosperity and promise will erode, and ALL Americans will pay the price. Is this what we want? If not, we had better refocus right away on the essential role that police play in making everything else possible. Should police be accountable for fair and just execution of their duties? Certainly. But we mustn’t throw the baby out with the bath water. Even in the face of the rare tragedy of a George Floyd, we must support our men in blue. Without them, we loose everything.