A Toxic Smog Of Hate
America is choking from a toxic smog. And it’s not volatile organic compounds, sulfides or ozone. The toxin simmering in our atmosphere is hate. Especially of our police.
In my post from 6/17/20 (The Floyd Effect) I predicted that today’s poisonous anti police atmosphere would inevitably result in diminished policing and, just as inevitably, increased crime. The ultimate victims of the increase in inner city crime will not be limited to the unfortunate minorities living in proximity to “black lives matter.” Sure, the inner city inhabitant will be the first to suffer. Some of these people already have NOWHERE to by food (their neighborhood stores have been burned down, they have no cars and local mass transit has been either reduced or eliminated). But the middle class will be effected too. They will suffer from the loss of jobs and the loss of revenue from having businesses in what are essentially “no go zones.” Ultimately, ALL Americans will pay the price.
In the Floyd Effect essay, I predicted that contemporary America’s antipolice ethos would demoralize our men and women in blue making them less willing to “stick their necks out” to make an arrest or even engage a perpetrator (especially a dangerous one) lest they be brought up on charges ranging from assault to murder. Sadly, there is now evidence that such a prediction is coming true.
As reported by Fox News, there are now emails and social media posts that show a growing sentiment among members of the NYPD to stage a protest of their own via a strike, sickout or slow down (source: Stephanie Pagones, www.foxnews.com, June 18, 2020). One scenario calls for such a protest to take place at 3 PM on JULY FOURTH. I think all but the most rabid anarchists would shudder at the thought of masses of people gathering for the holiday without police to maintain order and safety. I personally don’t think a large scale police action along these lines is likely to occur because of the inevitable reprisals that would follow. No matter how demoralized and disgusted the NYPD officers become, they still have “mouths to feed” at home and a need to make a living. I also think it will be unlikely because, despite the abuse these public servants face, they have an ingrained sense of duty. A large scale “sickout” is just too easy for Deblasio’s hand picked police brass to identify and discipline. What I DO expect to happen are actions, though very real, are LESS visible: less vigorous pursuit of perpetrators, avoidance of “no go zones”, more unwillingness to physically engage a criminal and, lastly, less vigorous dangerous undercover and investigational activities. All of these things, which will have very real consequences, will be difficult or impossible for police management to identify and discipline. And the consequences will be, without doubt, more crime.
Not only will “Floyd Effect” consequences be felt through a change in the actions of law enforcement personnel, it will also take place through drastic and dangerous restructuring of resources and laws, already underway. These include NYC’s ludicrous “get out of jail free” law, which releases supposedly “non violent” felons right after their arrest paperwork is finished at the station house. There have been documented cases of three arrests of the same criminal IN ONE DAY.
Yesterday, the city of Milwaukee not only eliminated the presence of police in its violence prone inner city schools, it enacted laws PROHIBITING FUNDING FOR METAL DETECTORS, FACIAL RECOGNITION SOFTWARE, AND SOCIAL MEDIA MONITORING. All of these tools, obviously, are used to prevent prevent violence in the schools and might even prevent, perhaps, the next mass school shooting. These crazy measures go BEYOND the notion of anti police reform; they are nothing less, ladies and gentlemen, than PRO CRIME. Why IN HELL people in Milwaukee think this type of legislation is a good idea defies comprehension.
Lastly, our anti police atmosphere is reducing the intensity of policing in yet another way. And, it’s in the saddest way possible: suicide. America was already in an epidemic of police suicide even BEFORE Floyd. In 2019 TWO HUNDRED AND TWENTY EIGHT American police officers perished by their own hand, a record number. Data is not yet available for 2020 or even part of 2020. Though there had been a suggestion that COVID-19 effects might have been lowering the police suicide rate somewhat, that was BEFORE Floyd. As morale on the force crumbles, suicides rates can only increase.
When researching the “Ferguson Effect” (the predecessor to the “Floyd Effect” I ran across a plethora of articles in the liberal press whose aim was to “debunk” what they called the Ferguson Effect “theory.” This isn’t so surprising, I think, because the implications of such an effect would obviously be so worrisome to normal people that the liberal antipolice advocates had to take great pains to ignore, refute or hide such considerations. I won’t lend credence to these self serving articles by presenting them here. Suffice it to say that I found their methodology and reasoning unconvincing at best. By way of rebuttal I would simply pose the following question: “Why WOULDN’T you expect a demoralized police force to be a less effective one?”
Unfortunately, the scenario I discussed above ISN’T idle speculation. Just as I went to post this essay, breaking news out of Seattle, reported that although the city’s NO COP Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ) is only 12 days old, it has already experienced its first homicide. The New York Post just reported (source: Isabell Vincent, nypost.com, June 20, 2020, 11:49 AM) that one individual was killed and another injured in a shooting. This is just TWELVE DAYS AFTER the police were moved out of the area by a combination of leftist mob threats and Jenny Durkan, the feckless liberal mayor. TWELVE DAYS! And on top of that there are also reports of the emergence of warlords, gangs, theft and extortion. Mayor Durkan’s prediction of a “summer of love” is becoming a ludicrous joke very quickly, it seems.
So, if America continues this wrongheaded attack on uniformed law enforcement, the Floyd effect will only grow; policing will go down, crime will go up, and ALL Americans will pay the price. Is THIS what we want for our nation?