The FBI just released its official
crime tally for 2016, and the data flies in the face of the rhetoric that
professional athletes rehearsed in revived Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests.
Nearly 900 additional blacks were
killed in 2016 compared with 2015, bringing the black homicide victim total to
7,881. Those 7,881 “black bodies,” in the
parlance of Ta-Nehisi Coates, are 1,305 more than the number of white victims
(which in this case includes most Hispanics) for the same period, though blacks
are only 13% of the nation’s population.
The increase in black homicide deaths
last year comes on top of a previous 900-victim increase between 2014 and 2015.
Who is killing these black victims? It’s not whites, and it’s not the police; it’s
other blacks. In 2016, the police fatally
shot 233 blacks – the vast majority armed and dangerous, according to the Washington Post (WP). The WP categorized only 16 black male victims
of police shootings as “unarmed.” That
classification masks assaults against officers and violent resistance to arrest.
Contrary to the BLM narrative, the police
have much more to fear from black males than black males have to fear from the
police. In 2015, a police officer was
18.5 times more likely to be killed by a black male than an unarmed black male
was to be killed by a police officer. Black
males have made up 42% of all cop-killers over the last decade, though they are
only 6% of the population.
That 18.5 ratio undoubtedly worsened
in 2016, in light of the 53% increase in gun murders of officers — committed
vastly and disproportionately by black males. Among all homicide suspects whose race was
known, white killers of blacks numbered only 243.
Violent crime has now risen by a
significant amount for two consecutive years. The total number of violent crimes rose 4.1%
in 2016, and estimated homicides rose 8.6%. In 2015, violent crime rose by nearly 4% and
estimated homicides by nearly 11%. The
last time violence rose two years in a row was 2005-06. The reason for the current increase is what I
have called the Ferguson Effect. Cops
are backing off of proactive policing in high-crime minority neighborhoods, and
criminals are becoming emboldened. Having
been told incessantly by politicians, the media, and BLM activists that they
are bigoted for getting out of their cars and questioning someone loitering on
a known drug corner at 2 a.m., many officers are instead just driving by. Such stops are discretionary; cops don’t have
to make them. And when political elites
demonize the police for just such proactive policing, we shouldn’t be surprised
when cops get the message and do less of it.
72% of the nation’s officers say that they and their colleagues are now
less willing to stop and question suspicious persons, according to a Pew
Research poll released in January 2017. The reason is the persistent anti-cop climate.
Four studies came out in 2016 alone
rebutting the charge that police shootings are racially biased. If there is a bias in police shootings, it
works in favor of blacks and against whites. That truth has not stopped the ongoing
demonization of the police — including, now, by many of the country’s ignorant professional
athletes.
The toll will be felt, as always, in
the inner city, by the thousands of law-abiding people there who desperately
want more police protection.
Rev.
Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.
Chaplain
(Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army
Pastor,
Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel
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