The so-called Ferguson effect has caused police in New York City and elsewhere to be less proactive out of concern that they won’t be protected from backlash, NYPD Commissioner William Bratton said Friday.
Speaking with reporters after a promotion ceremony at police headquarters at which a majority of new captain jobs went to minorities, Bratton said he concurred with comments made this week by FBI Director James Comey.
Comey, citing anecdotal evidence, said at a conference of police chiefs that a “chill wind” has affected cops who don’t feel like getting out of their cars to fight crime.
Looks like it has been a total disaster (*ROLLS EYES*):
Yes, New York City’s murder rate is higher than it was last year.
But that is because the city set a record-low for murders in 2014 — just 333. This year, the city is on pace to have it’s second best year, in terms of murders, according to the police commissioner and a new report from NYU’s Brennan Center for Justice.
As of Nov. 22, there had been 310 murders in the city this year, compared to 293 by that date a year earlier, a 5.8 percent increase.
A report from the Brennan Center said the increase in homicides this year is, basically, insignificant.
In a report issued six days ago, called “Crime in 2015: A Preliminary Analysis,” researchers said the city’s murder rate “is on pace to increase 8 percent from 2014. This amounts to 28 more murders … [a] rate of 0.3 murders per 100,000 greater than it was last year, an extremely small increase —meaning that 2015 and 2014 are more or less comparable.”
The report, which looked at crime in major cities across the U.S., said Los Angeles — whose police force Bratton led from 2002 through 2009 — is projected to end 2015 with an 11 percent jump in its murder rate; Chicago’s murder rate is expected to increase 20 percent (to levels comparable to 2012); and in Houston, the murder rate is expected to rise 24 percent. Philadelphia and Phoenix are projected to have murder rates largely unchanged from 2014, according to the report.
If Bratton and the Brennan Center’s projections are borne out, it will be a boon for Mayor Bill de Blasio, who has constantly fought the perception that safety and the quality of life in New York City have been slipping since he took office in January 2014. (Republican presidential candidate and N.J. governor Chris Christie told CNN on Sunday the murder rate in New York City had increased 11 percent. When asked to verify the claim, a Christie campaign spokesperson referred POLITICO New York to a Daily News story … from July.)
Make of that what you will. It’s obviously too early to say what the statistics mean, but suffice it to say, people protesting the behavior of shitty cops executing people in the street is not leading to the crime wave some would like you to think is happening. Maybe in a civil society there’s no need for cops to get out of their cars and “proactively” act like goons.
JPL
What does Fox news say?
schrodinger's cat
Ferguson effect sounds like ether, something that can’t be detected, since it doesn’t exist. If you think you have no use for Einstein and his fancy theories, think again!
misterpuff
The Phantom Menace
But you could say that about all the Right’s Bugaboos.
dedc79
@schrodinger’s cat: Yeah, even if was real (and I highly doubt that it is), how could anyone ever prove it anyway?
gene108
The great black out of the early 00’s did not lead to any looting, unlike the 1978 NYC black out.
The Great Recession did not lead to a huge uptick in crime, despite people losing all their money.
Whatever it is that is causing crime to go down, for the last 20 years, seems to be pretty steady and not impacted by external factors too much.
Maybe the folks, who speculate the less lead everywhere has helped create a more capable generation, with better impulse control are right.
pat
I never understood the whine about not getting out of the car because they might be accused of doing something bad. How about getting out of the car and NOT doing something bad? Like don’t gun down black folks within seconds of arriving on the scene, don’t strangle people selling single cigarettes. Is that so hard to understand?
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
I’m tired, and I have a cold and a bad attitude. Next day off: next Tuesday.
goblue72
Hasn’t stopped white New Yorkers from calling de Blasio a failure.
Because heaven forbid the Mayor should help the poor or non-white New Yorkers.
And that’s New York City. Not Alabama or Georgia or Texas or Kansas. It’s New York City.
The majority of whites are just completely resentful of ANY leader who actively works to help out people who aren’t white. Doesn’t matter if its a black President or a white Mayor.
Its not about who Obama is. Its about who he is perceived as standing up for.
Baud
Before BLM hit the scene, it seemed like every other day there was some libertarian on the intertubes calling the cops fascists and the U.S. a police state.
I still see that now and again, but not nearly as often. I wonder what’s changed.
sharl
@JPL: With the exception of Shep Smith, the folks at Faux Newz were reliably vile on their treatment of the death of Fox Lake, Illinois police Lt. Charles Joseph Gliniewicz’s death. Back before it was discovered to be a carefully staged suicide made to look like a murder, the Faux crew immediately started screaming Ferguson Effect! when news of Gliniewicz’s death became public.
Once it was discovered that Gliniewicz was embezzling funds and feared he was about to be discovered – I’m outta links, but Fox Lake village administrator Anne Marrin was on his trail – he saw no way out.
cmorenc
@JPL:
Be afraid, very very afraid, of swarthy-skinned people. Except, of course, Ben Carson.
David Koch
The police force has gone straight down hill ever since Ponch and Jon retired.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
I may just strangle the next person that tells me to enjoy the long weekend.
David Koch
@goblue72: welcome to Mercia, n00bie
BillinGlendaleCA
The local news keeps telling me about all the murders every night and I don’t remember that from last year so murders must be up like 5000%. It must be because the fine upstanding police are afraid of doing an effective job due to all those protests.
[/typical local news viewer]
WereBear
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: Mmmmm. Retail?
BillinGlendaleCA
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: Enjoy the long weekend.
[runs]
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@WereBear: Security, working a post I dislike because two guards quit with no notice in the last ten days.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@BillinGlendaleCA: I’m working on my ability to reach through the internet to throttle people.
Baud
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: If you ever perfect that technology, you should consider investing in porn.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Might be the only thing that could save the adult entertainment industry.
WereBear
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: My sympathies. For me, the worst was shift work on a holiday where I could get limitedly festive and had to be at work by 4 pm.
Took a lot of the fun out of it.
BillinGlendaleCA
@WereBear: You just described my wife’s Thanksgiving, we’re having a “Pre-Thanksgiving Dinner”, aka “Retail Thanksgiving”.
Cacti
@goblue72:
In Obama’s case, I’d say it’s both.
In De Blasio’s case, the latter.
It’s no surprise that the most popular show on Friday Nights is Blue Bloods. A suburbanite fantasy about a dynastic, white, Irish Catholic, New York law enforcement family named Reagan. Every minority on that show is a schemer out to sully the good name of the virtuous white cops who never break a rule, never show a drop of prejudice, and never have any conflicts of interest, despite their always overlapping job responsibilities.
Randy P
@JPL:
Oh, I think we’ve got the lede already. From the second article above:
Rush et al will extrapolate that into “New York’s murder rate is the highest it’s ever been” and that’s what your wingnut friends and relatives will hear and repeat back to you over your turkey. And believe for the rest of their lives.
Who needs numbers? Numbers are boring.
Gimlet
Muddying the water to give reasonable doubt.
From Right Wing Watch
For the mainstream media to go out and say that this (9-11 celebration) didn’t happen is just factually inaccurate. We know it happened.
They should go back and check the FBI records.
Mr. Trump has provided them local media outlets that have covered this coverage that they don’t want to go and talk about. He’s provided many opportunities for them to go and see it but they have their own agenda, the media has their own agenda.
They want to try and discredit as many people as possible so they can have an establishment candidate come in and think that everything is going to be the same because they are all controlled by the special interests and they are all controlled by the media and it is what the American people are just so tired of.
MomSense
@goblue72:
QFT
cmorenc
The lead headline tonight at the Fox News website is: “COPS, COMMUNITIES IN DANGER? Outrage as military equipment taken from officers in wake of Obama order” …and the first sentence in the underlying story says “…in the wake of the president’s post-Ferguson order…”
Baud
@Cacti: I’ve never watched that show, but just the commercials for it give me the heebie-jeebies.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@WereBear: I work 1500-2300 on Thursday. I’m driving down to Mankato (about 90 minutes from here) to watch a hockey game Friday afternoon, then working 2200-0600 Friday night. There’s another hockey game in Mankato on Saturday, then I work from 1800-0600 Saturday night. Then I work 1500-2300 on Sunday.
On the one hand, there’s the question of whether it really makes sense to drive to Mankato and back twice in the middle of this. On the other hand, watching those games is about the only thing fun I have planned over the next seven days.
b-more
Amazingly, Baltimore (where I live) has had 309 murders so far this year (and a kid just got stabbed in school and is in critical condition). So essentially the same number as NYC despite having a population less than 1/13 th as large.
Cacti
@Baud:
The presence of Tom Selleck in a cop show virtually guarantees a strong fascist undertone, and lots of right wing cop-aganda.
patrick II
If a police officer doesn’t think he can do his job without being held blameless for shooting a fleeing black man in the back, he should look for another line of work.
Mike J
@WereBear:
I once pulled an overnight shift at the AM radio station on Christmas eve, went down the hall and did Christmas morning on the FM.
JMG
Murder is used as a stand-in for all violent crime because it’s both the scariest and easiest to measure. Nobody fails to report a murder. But it also varies statistically because even when the rate is high, it’s a relatively rare crime. My old home town of Wilmington, Del. has a very high murder rate because it’s never been able to have one organization dominate the drug trade. My adult home of Boston has more shootings in 2015 than in 2014 but fewer murders, leading one to conclude that what keeps the city safer is that it’s residents are poor shots.
Mike J
@JMG:
Does this explain the Red Sox pitching staff for the past two seasons?
Baud
@Cacti:
All cop shows have those undertones from what I can tell. I usually don’t mind as entertainment, but BB seems like it’s on a different level. But like I said, I haven’t actually seen an episode.
Baud
D vs R
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Hey, Barney Miller was OK.
lamh36
So Rahm et all held 40 minute presser on the video, just enough time for it to NOT make it to evening news and instead to nightly news maybe morning news…but then overshadowed by international news. Then they released video link for 1 hour and of course the website continuously crashed almost immediately.
Oh and Rahm claimed to not having seen the video…BULL….SH….IIIII…TTTTT. Then what was the point of the “stay calm negroes” presser?
As for the video, I refuse to watch another video of a Black boy/man/person of color being shot by police.
Police have had this video for over a year and only released it after FOIA by a reporter (who btw, the police barred from the presser, presumably cause he’d have questions for those assholes) then, low and behold, all of a sudden, the officer was charged, but notice seems like only after order to release video
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Heh. I was talking about current shows.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Oh, OK, carry on.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@BillinGlendaleCA:
FWIW, I refuse to shop on holidays and I’m pretty sure I’m going to #optoutside for Black Friday to boot.
Macys merchandise quality sucks anyway,
but that’s a different discussion.
Elizabelle
Is the awful cop from the Tamir Rice murder out of legal danger? Cuz maybe events in Chicago will stiffen the Cleveland prosecutor’s spine. It’s appalling some expert witness thought the officer’s actions were justified.
I would like to see an indictment in the Tamir Rice murder too. 12-year old child, toy gun, on a playground. For Dog’s sake.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Baud:
I’ve only watched a couple of episodes, but “Brooklyn 9-9” is much more in the “Barney Miller” vein as far as I can tell. Plus it has Andre Braugher as the police chief.
Baud
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
I’ve never even heard of that show.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
It’s good for the idiots that want status symbols. I refuse to go to that store because it gives me a headache due to the over abundance of perfume smell.
lamh36
Background on how the Laquan McDonald story came to light thanks to a whistleblower, jamiekalven & Craig Futterman
SatanicPanic
it must be nice to have a job where you can go “well if people don’t like the work I do fuck it I guess I won’t work hard” and have your superiors back you up. I bet McDonald’s workers don’t get to do that.
lamh36
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA:
I hate Macy’s also. Never had a good experience there.
lamh36
UPDATE: Why GoFundMe took down a page seeking donations for a #Chicago cop charged with
WereBear
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): I tend to buy things at craft fairs or small operations on the web. AND Satby’s soap, Skinluvvers on Etsy, makes marvy gifts for not much coin.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Elizabelle:
It sounds like a very similar case — cop rolls up and opens fire immediately without taking even a minute to evaluate the situation. I’m still sickened that the prosecutor in Cleveland can’t be bothered to charge the child killer with manslaughter. Negligence. Something.
Elizabelle
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): I’m hoping Cleveland prosecutor might reconsider. Fingers crossed, and Chicago might help there.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Baud:
Seriously? It’s on Fox. Stars Andy Samberg from “SNL.” It won two Golden Globes and Braugher got two Emmy nominations.
Technically, I think it’s spelled “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” but I assume you got the general title idea.
Lurking Canadian
@pat: I think the “argument” is that all this namby-pamby nonsense about not shooting unarmed kids in the back makes it just too dangerous for them to properly do their very, very dangerous job.
D58826
OT but flipped on Faux news to see what they were covering. They were covering the middle east with the usual slant that its all Obama’s fault. According to Ollie North the US could establish total air superiority over Syria by sending a few carrier battle groups to the Med. and telling Putin to but out. Victory would be destroying these 30 or so terrorist groups that want to come to American and kill Ollie, Greta and John Bolton. If Obama would only exercise American leadership then the Turks, Iranians, and Russians would meekly fall in line under american direction. But Obama is supporting these genocidal terrorists because he has no plan.
I truly am developing a hate for a major segment of my own country. I’m not sure Obama has all of the answers but I’m tired of listening to this pond scum accusing the President of treason and genocide. Especially given Ollies history of selling weapons to the Iranians..
Baud
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): I don’t watch much TV anymore.
Elizabelle
Saw my first “Blue Lives Matter” sticker today.
Was on a VW hatchback with no other bumper stickers, and amusing license plate. MOR COWBLL
Elizabelle
@D58826: Morning Joe, that great strategic mind, was dripping disgust over Obama today. He said at one point that Obama should be more like George W Bush, and assemble a Coalition of the Willing.
Does that crap make people hate Obama? Wondering how many people might say “hey, wait a minute.”
cmorenc
@D58826:
Um, that particular part of the terrorists plans actually sounds sort of constructive… :=)
Baud
@Elizabelle: Since W. will never be president again, and it looks like his brother won’t either, it’s easy for those who want to hate Democrats and Obama to re-imagine his presidency as a golden age.
trollhattan
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Or: Long for the enjoyable weekend.
SoupCatcher
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
I don’t know if there’s something comparable in Southern California, but here in Northern California we have this free option for the day after Thanksgiving.
D58826
@cmorenc: That thought crossed my mind also
joes527
@David Koch: I hate to break it to you, but Ponch and Jon were highway patrol.
sharl
@Elizabelle: The Tamir Rice situation is still playing itself out. Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy McGinty done found himself a friendly “police expert” who found the shooting to be “tragic but reasonable”.
Tamir’s family and supporters, quite understandably, aren’t buying any of this, and are demanding – among other things – that McGinty recuse himself from this case and appoint an independent special prosecutor “not affiliated with Ohio”. As the link notes, yesterday they delivered a petition with over 200,000 signatures to McGinty’s office.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@SoupCatcher:
I haven’t seen a So Cal option, but we’re probably going for a bike ride anyway. Peeps in Minnesota get free state park admission thanks to an order from their governor, but you probably have to be pretty hardy to go for a hike this time of year. Maybe cross-country skiing for them?
Mike J
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): Mount Rainier National Park and Olympic National Park are waiving entry fees for green Friday.
Elizabelle
@sharl: Thank you, sharl. Read them both. Excellent and comprehensive article by reporter Cory Shaffer.
I hope prosecutor McGinty does recuse himself. At this point, what is in it for him with staying on the case? Police shootings need to be handled by a special prosecutor; conflict of interest otherwise.
max
Maybe in a civil society there’s no need for cops to get out of their cars and “proactively” act like goons.
I’m sure in some quarters that’s a necessary perk.
max
[‘Charming fuckers.’]
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): No snow yet, even up in the Arrowhead.
rikyrah
Here is the bottom line about Laquan McDonald
Top Question that needs to be answered.
1. WAS the spot where Laquan was killed the place where the ORIGINAL 9-1-1 call was taken?
The answer to this question is EVERYTHING to me.
Because, why the hell do you put someone in a squad car, and take them to ANOTHER LOCATION that is NOT the police station, and then get the person out of the squad car?
Starfish
@b-more: Baltimore is run by incompetents, and people keep voting for the same morons who were on the city council and deserve to be mayor. Dixon is running again. W.T.F. She had to resign due to stealing gift cards from poor people, and she is running again.
divF
@joes527:
How about Gunther and Francis, then ?
Johannes
@divF: Logan and Francis, more like.
Suzanne
Brooklyn Nine-Nine is a fun, fluffy show. Andre Braugher is great.
I will be decorating my house, inside and out, for Christmas on Black Friday. I may go to the grocery store late in the afternoon, but that’s closest I will get to shopping.
barbequebob
@divF:
There’s scout troop short a child
Kruschev’s due at Idewild , (now JFK)
Car 54 where are you????????????
Matt McIrvin
@Elizabelle: I was driving today behind a car with a Trump sticker, then noticed it had a New Hampshire House license plate.
There’s Trump’s voter base: the NH House of Representatives. Sounds about right.
Matt McIrvin
(There’s almost enough of them to give him the state all by themselves.)
a different chris
To paraphrase, ‘Well, when the Police do it, that means that it is not illegal.’ Why would anyone protest against that? If the cops aren’t allowed to bust some heads now and then, somebody might get hurt!
TriassicSands
Unless you happened to be one of the victims or a member of a victim’s family. I know what the statement means — this is little more that normal variation — but it still sounds a little strange.
Another Holocene Human
@goblue72: “the whites” lost a veto on that because they moved out of “the city”.
it’s a bunch of bitter white flight suburbanites shitting up the newspaper comments. fuck them.
Another Holocene Human
@Baud: Radley Balko is the last man standing, as I predicted. Wonder when he’ll catch on that nobody else sporting his favored political label believes the same things he does.
Another Holocene Human
@b-more: Well, you know what they say about the wages of sin …
back when Glendenning defunded the schools to steal a football team
Baltimore is a pit because a lot of people are invested in it being so.
Another Holocene Human
@JMG:
Wrong! NYC systemically underreports murders because of the need to hit the COMPSTAT numbers. Vehicular homicide? Too bad! Precinct captain’s gotta make his numbers. That reckless or DUI that killed your mom has now been reclassed as an accident. Merry fucking Christmas.
Another Holocene Human
@Elizabelle: Blue Meanies.
Another Holocene Human
@rikyrah: That’s some fucking Stasi shit right there.
Another Holocene Human
@Matt McIrvin: There’s a NH House license plate? What on earth is that for, to intimidate local cops into not giving them parking tickets?
Better not leave the state with that thing–out of state staties might see that as a challenge.
I’ve always relished the story of Mass gov Bill Weld caught speeding in NJ, pulling the “don’t you know who I am” shtick and being told, “Yup, but this is New Jersey. Here’s your $200 speeding ticket and HAND.”
Another Holocene Human
@TriassicSands: But every homicide rips through families and communities, even when crime is going down.
Their point is, now is not the time to hit the panic button.
Geeno
@Johannes: A Logan’s Run reference?
Paul in KY
@Elizabelle: Hoping for federal charges, if Cleveland can’t get it’s shit together.
Paul in KY
@Another Holocene Human: Think all states have special license plates for legislators, etc.
satby
@cmorenc: And this is why, in the face of all contradictory facts, that most people believe crime is skyrocketing, that murder rates are through the roof, and that no one is safe, so you should have your gun on you at all times. Because they’re told exactly that.
The Other Chuck
@Another Holocene Human: I imagine the first purpose it serves is as a parking permit at the legislature buildings.
Christopher Murphy
@cmorenc: and honorary whites(ie. Cuban) Rubio & Cruz)