The Cost of Radical Police ‘Reform’ Is Blood on Chicago’s Streets

[Geee]

National Review:

In Chicago, two momentous things are happening at once. First, in the aftermath of the Laquan McDonald shooting — where a white officer shot a black teenager, who was armed with a small knife, 16 times, even as McDonald appeared to be walking away — Chicago police and prosecutors are facing a Department of Justice investigation and intense public scrutiny. Second, as the investigation and accompanying political controversy unfold, Chicago’s murder rate has surged by 84 percent, and shootings have almost doubled.

 

Here we go again. Last year, the major cities most roiled by conflict over police shootings and police misconduct also saw murder rates spike dramatically — leading to debate over whether more-timid policing was at least partially responsible for the increase in mayhem. FBI director James Comey last October described a “chill wind” blowing through law enforcement and said that officers felt as if they were “under siege.”

 

By the end of the year, there was evidence that the so-called Ferguson effect — the term for crime spikes arguably due to changes in police tactics — had gone national. Murders in major cities increased by 17 percent, the largest rise in 25 years.