WARNING: Woke progressive politics can be fatal
The FBI released its crime numbers for calendar 2020. It is well reported that the violent crime rate increased 5.2% from 2019. But homicides by almost 30%! Killings accounted for the highest year-to-year increase since 1960, when such record-keeping began.
Sure enough, Madison WI recorded its ninth homicide last evening (09-27-21) on a nice street only a few blocks from the Stately Manor here on the SW side. On pace to match the 10 recorded all of last year.
Milwaukee, Albuquerque, Des Moines, Indianapolis, Memphis, and Syracuse, recorded their highest homicide numbers ever last year.
Madison WI taxpayer-financed progressive “art”
Experts are always differing
“There is no simple explanation for the steep rise,” the New York Times bleats. Got to know they searched for one. Because they go all Covid-19 on the issue. (“I popped that dude ‘cuz he wasn’t masked up.”) Only much deeper into the story does it venture an also-ran theory:
The protests that erupted after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis were also an important factor, in 2020, although experts differ about why.
Former big city police chief William Bratton gets it right. He’s the guy who tamed New York City under Rudy Giuliani.
- The number of sworn officers across the country has been declining for nearly a decade. In 2013, there were more than 720,000 cops on American streets. By 2018, that number had fallen below 690,000.
- For another, because of explicit and implicit discouragement from both the public and political leaders, officers in many jurisdictions seem to be growing wary of being proactive in the field despite the benefits that such proactivity has been shown to produce.
- The recent spikes in serious violent crime were, in many places, preceded by mostly well-meaning, if in some cases misguided, police and criminal-justice “reforms.” Rather than consider the possibility that some of these initiatives made cities more vulnerable to crime, activists have doubled down on de-policing and decarceration — in some cases going so far as to call for the abolition of police and prisons.
Strong policing is a civil right
Of the homicide victims, 9,913 were black, 7,029 were white, and 812 of other races. I.E., 55% of the victims were black in a nation that is 13.4% black.
Buried in the statistics, the FBI estimates law enforcement agencies nationwide made 7.6 million arrests, not counting traffic violations. If one gave credence to the social justice warriors, there should be at least a hundred thousand instances of police brutality, targeting, etc. You don’t think newsrooms throughout the country are ready to pounce on the flimsiest allegation of same?
Question for the peanut gallery: What do these numbers tell the “reimagine policing” crowd — alders like Nikki Conklin and Yannette Figueroa Cole?
Congratulations to Fitchburg WI for hiring Alfonso Morales as its new police chief. He did a great job in Milwaukee, which is why the woke politicians there fired him. Ordered officers to fire tear gas and pepper spray at people protesting George Floyd’s murder.
→ “Dozens of shots fired” between two racing cars on a Fitchburg street.
Blaska’s Bottom Line: Notice: Kenosha burned while Milwaukee did not.
What is YOUR crime?
Education
Blaska Policy Werkes 
Regarding the Slim Slimes’s also-ran theory, “The protests that erupted after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis were also an important factor…”
Amazing and appalling that our moral and intellectual betters just can stop beating this dead horse (destined to be seen by future generations —if indeed there are any— as a ringer for the Captain Alfred Dreyfus kangaroo kort konvictions), and are still parroting —uncorrected— the righteous, lying narrative that George Floyd was murdered by the police, rather than dying from a self-administered fentanyl overdose.
The initial post-mortem indicated bloodstream fentanyl levels more than twice the LD50; perhaps semi-accidentally resultant from Floyd’s “hooping” (i.e., anal insertion) his stash —admitted freely to the arresting officers, and probably intended to avoid further complicating his criminal justice situation, beyond just passing the fake $20 bill. Significant blood levels showed up as well, of fentanyl metabolites, methamphetamine, cocaine, and cannabinoids.
The formal autopsy report, published online by the Hennepin County Coroner’s office just days after Floyd’s death, also revealed that his lungs weighed three times the expected amount, due to their being almost completely fluid/exudate filled: a classic sympton of Fentanyl toxicology; and his heart was greatly enlarged as a resulted of decades of untreated arteriosclerosis.
And as icing on the cake, Floyd tested positive for COVID19!
(Also ignored in the rabid media Chauvin lynching was that MN first responders had just several weeks or months previously revived Floyd from a near-fatal fentanyl OD using a Naloxone injection.)
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Alan P,
Despite that long sad toxicology report, all self-inflicted, Floyd was still navigating terra firma upright and probably would be still had he not *resisted arrest* which is nearly always the common denominator when perps die from police interaction but at least he was memorialized multiple times. I am surprised Floyd’s death wasn’t attributed to the Chines virus however. That is unusual.
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If BLM Inc. and affiliated grifters were at all serious they would be on the Beltline and Verona Rd., right now, shutting it all down until elected officials put a stop to this assault on Black lives.
But because they are basically a front for Dems, they are silent as thousands of anonymous Blacks die mostly at the hands of other Blacks who are emboldened by anti-police rhetoric and initiatives.
Pathetic.
I’m sure BLM Inc. are in private strategy sessions for the midterm elections while bullets fly and blood flows now.
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It shows me that some black lives matter more than others.
Black lives taken by other blacks don’t matter as much.
The reason Democrats wants to downplay the rise in crime is that they spent all last summer cheering it on. Democrats rooted for their militant wings, Antifa and BLM.
“Cops bad, Violence Good.” is their misanthropic mantra. Remember the reporter standing in front of a burning building in Kenosha telling us that the protests were “mostly peaceful”? These Leftist Luddites were spinning the violence while it was happening, so of course they’re going to continue to do so now and in the future.
Like so many of their policies, the DemonRat’s “Defund The Police” insanity hurts those minorities they claim to want to help the most, 80% of regular, normal black people actually want MORE police in their neighborhoods.
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Last night’s homicide was atypical …. knew that when it was reported that witnesses were cooperating with the police.
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I’m not a “defund” person. I support police as much as I support all working people. Their job is made difficult by politicians and lawyers, and that’s where most of our anger should be directed.
With that said, police don’t really prevent crime. (By and large, of course there are exceptions)
Preventing crime by law enforcement is essentially asking them to intervene into innocent people’s lives – the crime hasn’t been committed thus the person isn’t yet a criminal. I don’t support armed agents of our government poking around innocent people “just in case” they might commit a crime.
Beware asking police to prevent crime – I’m sure the FBI would love to prevent some crime too and monitor innocent people’s lives…
I want our police to be tasked with SOLVING crimes and getting excellent cases put together to get the right person behind bars.
I want our laws to change to let the police focus on the crime victims. I want every move a police officer makes to be in service of a human crime victim. Anything not avenging a crime victim should be handled by non police workers.
This will put police officers to their rightful place as heros in all minds. As it is, too many non-criminals see police as a threat because of dubious prevention tactics and police enforcement of victimless crimes. We can change that by changing what we ask police to do. It is not their fault they are disliked in some communities- it’s all of our faults.
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Are you familiar with the euphemism, revolving door justice Rollie?
Research the sentencing/bail records of Judge’ Everett Mitchell and Ellen Berz and while you are in research mode, check out DA Ismael Ozanne.
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Yeah, that’s one big piece that gets unfairly dumped on police. The system in which police function is terrible, and since they’re the most visible part of that system all the anger gets directed towards them.
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Rollie,
I’m not sure where you get your information from, but police actually do prevent crime, using proactive & community policing. When they’re allowed to build strong relationships with the communities they serve, they’re in better positions to resolve problems before they can escalate.
These forms of policing are not as prominent now, and have been largely replaced with reactive policing for two main reasons: Staffing shortages and an ongoing anti-cop sentiment that has all but debilitated the ability of police to do their jobs. Would you want to be a cop and put everything out there if you feared getting ambushed, constantly demoralized, indicted for doing your job, losing your pension, or having your family subjected to harassment? Rank and file officers can’t even always depend on their own command officers to support them.
That said, police can only do so much. It’s up to parents to raise solid citizens, not the police.
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Years back when I looked into this I was unconvinced by the data supporting the effectiveness of those strategies. I read every study I could find and was generally unimpressed with the findings and methodology. It often seemed like cherry picking, like so much other social science research unfortunately. I’d be happy to be introduced to new information though.
I disagree with your timeline regarding reactive and proactive policing. Every major city I know of has a community policing mission. As far back as the 70’s this notion was implemented and I know of zero departments that have moved back to a reactive policing framework. Please correct me if I’m wrong, it’s been a few years for me.
That was one of the interesting things about Milwaukee’s policing history. They were late adopters of these new proactive strategies and their clearance rates used to be far above their peers when they had a more investigation-focused department.
I agree that the working conditions for police are terrible and I want them to be improved. That’s a major component of my current philosophy. I disagree with the anti-police sentiment in our culture and believe that people with those beliefs should point higher up the food chain.
I don’t want cops to be social workers, mental health counselors, minor dispute mediators, or community best-buddies. I want them to identify, locate, and safely apprehended criminals. I believe and advocate that we need to get them back to those basics and task others with touchy-feely crime prevention and community building tasks. This will improve their working conditions and de-muddle their jobs.
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“Preventing crime by law enforcement is essentially asking them to intervene into innocent people’s lives – the crime hasn’t been committed thus the person isn’t yet a criminal. I don’t support armed agents of our government poking around innocent people “just in case” they might commit a crime. ”
” I want every move a police officer makes to be in service of a human crime victim. ”
This rationale would make an excellent case for “defunding” the meteorologists at NOAA, and concentrating all of our attention on disaster relief. Those guys claim that their “experience” allows them to pick out weather systems, that have YET to cause any damage, and subject those systems to increased scrutiny. Then they make predictions about the likelihood that death and destruction may result, implementing preventative measures. Some of the time they are WRONG.
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And we don’t have constitutional protections against the weather like we do against government power. I don’t even mind using police data to help understand where and what problems are. I’m just saying get government agents with the power to arrest and authority to kill out of innocent people’s business.
Stop measuring police performance by crime rate. They don’t control the crime rate! But chiefs will love to take credit when it goes down and ask for more money when it goes up!
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Rollie, you are the problem. You appear unconcerned with the rising crime rate; indifferent to the bloodshed among our black neighbors. You want to keep police as merely the intake service for the criminal justice system, which is the problem. You may very well be as hopeless as you sound. (If so, you’re in good company here in Madison. Are you an alder?) But gotta try. Do you slow down to the speed limit when you see a police squad car? Do you believe retail store cameras dissuade shoplifting? Do you believe teenagers scanning the streets for open garage doors are innocent? Must authority stand aside until they careen their stolen cars into an innocent motorist?
What “dubious prevention tactics” have you in mind? Itemize for the peanut gallery your “victimless crimes.” (Please do not repeat the canard that our prisons are full of luckless victims whose only crime was smoking a joint.)
One last observation: It’s not “all our faults.” It’s your fault. No, stupid is not a crime but it’s the criminal’s best friend.
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A. I don’t like crime and I support catching criminals. I dislike rising crime rates.
B. I drive as close to the speed limit as I safely can and I slow and move over for squads (whatever that has to do with any of this?)
C. Nothing is 100% or simple – that’s something I consistently repeat in this comment section. So yes, I can imagine perhaps some measurable effect for security cameras, likely more effect if there was a cop on every corner – if that’s what you’re looking for?
D1. Dubious prevention tactics include overuse of saturation patrols (these can be effective in specific and limited instances- remember nothing is 100%) and pretextural traffic stops where normal people are repeatedly harassed while going about their day. Read some of the accounts of the people caught up in Milwaukee’s crime prevention tactics.
D2. If you want police presence to be an effective deterrent get ready to fork over lots of money and live in a police state. We already have cameras and ShotSpotters everywhere- where’s the data on the deterrent effect? I’ll wait while you find it…. I assume most people here like freedom, and freedom comes with a cost. There will be crime. We won’t be able to control every human impulse. I’m not saying we shouldn’t catch criminals- just that police don’t prevent much crime using current prevention philosophy and just spending more on police without other actions as well won’t lower crime (I don’t even mind spending more on police but not for the current mission). I believe that old-fashioned criminal catching will prevent more crime than any modern police-focused prevention tactic. Our clearance rates suck because police are spending all their time on community-policing prevention bs, and too many people judge performance by crime rates, which then promote that misguided prevention mission. We need to get people afraid that they will get caught, and unless we refocus our departments, 30% clearance rates don’t strike much fear into criminal’s hearts. Assess performance by clearance rates not crime rates!
E. Victimless crimes like drug consumption and selling. I don’t want people doing drugs any more than you do, but the prohibition is what causes the violence (that’s a fact), and it’s drug law enforcement that (I believe) causes lots of the anti police sentiment. Look back to alcohol prohibition for your case study. Ask any cop if we’ll incarcerate our way out of our drug problem. I want less violence and it’s clear to me that the most direct path to that is rethinking prohibition. If you want to keep prohibition then don’t complain about the violence, they are two sides of the same coin. Supporting prohibition means accepting the accompanying violence – it makes no sense to act shocked and concerned about violence while supporting prohibition.
F. We’re either in a democracy or not. If we are then our laws are all our faults. If we’re not, then it’s the faults of whoever is in charge. I’d prefer to take personal responsibility for the actions of my government, and I think all of us should.
G. I really want all Americans to shake off right/left ideology and get towards solving issues. Try looking up the commission report “the problem with crime in a free society”. I found that to be a very non-ideological and pragmatic look at the issue. If we’d have done even half of what was recommended in that report 50 years ago we’d be in a way better place.
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Apropos, though mostly relative to Chicago, which seems to be a microcosm of the nation…
I sourced this from several places, tho mostly the summary from a recent Loyola study. Beyond this intro, the words are NOT mine. BTW, Recently Chief Barnes touted the “reduced number of shots fired incidents” but the % decrease was low, and in recent days, has been chipped away…
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Most Firearm Offenses in Illinois are for Firearms Possession by Black Men. In a paper published at Loyola University Chicago, describing the make-up of people convicted for firearms possession, few surprises are found. These are the major findings listed in the executive summary of the paper, published in July of 2021.
Click to access firearmpossessionsentencinginillinois.pdf
1) The majority of felony firearm possession convictions in Illinois occur in Cook County, primarily involve Black men, and are disproportionately concentrated in specific Chicago neighborhoods;
2) The majority—52%–of felony firearm possession convictions in Illinois involved Class X, 2, or 3 felony offenses of a person with a PRIOR felony conviction possessing a firearm; 34% involved a Class 4 felony offense;
3) For the least serious felony firearm possession offense (e.g., a Class 4 felony), one-third (33%) of the statewide convictions stemmed from arrests in 11 of Chicago’s 77 neighborhoods. Of those convicted of a Class 4 felony firearm possession offense, 74% were EIGHTEEN – TWENTY year-olds;
4) As a result of increased arrests, and mandatory prison sentences for most firearm possession offenses, prison admissions for these crimes INCREASED 27% between 2014 and 2019, while admissions for all other crimes fell 38%;
5) Legislative changes in 2011 and 2018 to Class 4 felony firearm possession offenses primarily impacted sentencing practices in Cook County;
6) Of those firearm possession offenses where prison is not mandatory under all circumstances (i.e., the Class 4 felony offenses), those convicted in Cook County were more likely to be sentenced to prison than in the rest of Illinois;
7) The vast majority of those sentenced to prison for firearm possession offenses were not arrested for a violent crime within THREE YEARS OF RELEASE from prison. Having a prior conviction for a violent crime was a stronger predictor of a subsequent arrest for a violent crime, and the majority of those convicted and sentenced to prison for firearm possession offenses do not have prior convictions for violent crimes;
“Many young black men are being arrested for firearms possession. These men are mostly from the most dangerous neighborhoods in the United States. Most of these men would rather take the chance of being arrested compared to the chance of being defenseless when attacked. Some of these cases are arrests when the firearm is being used in defense of self and others. We do not know the percentage.”
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And we have a system that reinforces this cycle.
There’s a huge segment of the population that is involved in underground market economics. While you or I can take business disputes to courts and use our institutions to moderate our business interactions, underground markets can’t. Disputes get resolved directly between the parties and violence is inevitable. When’s the last time you saw a shootout between rival liquor store owners?
And if the response is “just don’t sell drugs!” that’s like saying just don’t have mental illness. There’s a demand for drugs and there will be a supply to meet it.
And for those of you who believe that the government shouldn’t be able to force you to take medication – where are you in this? Should the government be able to tell you what you can and can’t put in your own body? The entire prohibition affair is an affront to basic ideas of freedom.
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From your sidebar:
“The website Heavy has the smartphone video of some goings on in the backseat of a Madison police squad car. Names a Madison police lieutenant. A lieutenant!”
We still don’t have a name (though it’s pretty easy to figure out). What is Chief Barnes waiting for? Hoping we’ll all forget? Said they need to investigate. Ok, but what’s taking so long?
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