It seems like just yesterday when candidates running for political office in big cities vowed to prosecute the kind of relentless war on crime that would have impressed General Patton. "Cracking down on violent criminals" was a standard refrain on the campaign trail.
Indeed, both our current President and Vice President built their careers with platforms focused on fighting crime.
Times have certainly changed.
As candidates, many big city politicians promised a war on criminals, yet as elected officials they are delivering a war against police officers the likes of which our country has never seen.
All forms of serious police misconduct should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, but that is no excuse for the shameless, and disgusting systematic campaigns of vilification being conducted against police departments.
Most cops have noble intentions and certainly don’t take up the job for a lavish salary. Last year, 358 Police Officers were killed in the line of duty, the deadliest year for police officers since 1974.
That is more than double the number of police officers killed in 2019.
While unscrupulous politicians pander to their big donors by gleefully smearing police departments across the country, violent criminals feel impenetrable and are spurring a dangerous crime wave across the United States.
Thanks in large part to passing dangerous new laws that are emptying prisons and handcuffing law enforcement, crime is skyrocketing in big cities and politicians are desperately trying to scapegoat the Police.
The homicide rate in New York City for 2020 spiked nearly 50% over 2019. There were more murders in New York City last year than any time in the last ten years.
This year shootings in New York City are already up by 40% over 2020.
Los Angeles is another example of a city now besieged by violent criminals. In 2020, Los Angeles experienced a nearly 40% increase in homicides, the highest level in ten years. In 2019, there was a 25% increase in homicides.
In Chicago, shootings and murders rose approximately 50% in 2020 and car-jackings doubled. The city of Atlanta saw a 58% increase in the murder rate.
More people were murdered in Atlanta last year than at any time in the last twenty years. The alarming increase in violent crime is not the only thing in common among these cities. These major US cities are full of demagogues spewing vitriolic and irresponsible anti-police rhetoric.
They don’t care about public safety nearly as much as demonizing their police departments while implementing bizarre policies designed to make law enforcement far more difficult.
In early 2020, Atlanta actually instituted a zero-tolerance policy prohibiting police officers from chasing fleeing suspects for even the most vicious crimes. This ridiculous social experiment (disguised as a public policy) was dramatically modified less than a year later.
The revisions to this policy only apply to specific felonies such as murder or imminent threat of serious injury, must be approved by a supervisor, and no more than three cruisers can join the chase.
We need not argue about the restrictions to cars or supervisor approval, but who in the world thought prohibiting Atlanta police officers from chasing murder suspects was ever a good idea in the first place?
Last year the Mayor of Los Angeles championed cutting the police budget by $150 million dollars amid a drastic increase in crime.
Moreover, many local elected officials on the City Council are working feverishly to find new ways to strip more funding from the LAPD and shift it to other areas.
The Mayor of Chicago has openly clashed with police unions and also sought drastic cuts in the police department budget even as Chicago is arguably the most dangerous place in America.
In New York City, the Mayor not only supported slashing the police department budget by a whopping one billion dollars, he also championed a recently enacted law that removes qualified immunity from police officers for actions carried out during the course of duty.
New York City is now the first and only city in the country to remove qualified immunity protections from police officers. Elected officials tripped over themselves to take credit for making it easier to hold police officers "accountable" for violating someone’s civil rights, strangely ignoring the fact that Police Officers were never exempt from violating anyone’s constitutional rights or breaking the law.
This is merely a punitive measure enabling frivolous lawsuits against the Police.
Unfortunately, there are bad actors in many police departments across the country as there are bad actors in almost every occupational field in the United States.
Supporting our brave and hard-working men and women in law enforcement and vigorously fighting against police misconduct are not mutually exclusive principles.
The war on police endangers communities all over the country and only acts as a stimulus program for dangerous criminals.
Enough. End the war on Police.
Nicholas Chamberas has advised good government advocacy groups, elected officials, and political candidates on public policy matters as well as having served as a senior adviser on several prominent New York City campaigns. He holds a degree in Political Science and a Juris Doctor. Read Nicholas Chamberas Reports — More Here.
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