Back in May 2015, Heather Mac Donald warned of a devastating “Ferguson effect” that was emerging out of animosity toward police.
Following the highly publicized …
Back in May 2015, Heather Mac Donald warned of a devastating “Ferguson effect” that was emerging out of animosity toward police.
Following the highly publicized deaths of Michael Brown and Freddie Gray in police custody, anti-cop sentiment swelled, police stopped proactively policing, and violent crime spiked, Mac Donald said in an interview with The Epoch Times’ “American Thought Leaders” program.
In 2015, the number of homicides in America’s 50 largest cities jumped nearly 17 percent.
In Baltimore, where Freddie Gray’s death sparked riots, the number of homicides in 2015 increased 59 percent from the previous year.
The nationwide unrest following the killing of George Floyd will prompt “a crime surge that is going to dwarf what we saw in 2015 and 2016,” Mac Donald said.
“Now, it’s going to be a bloodbath, because the Black Lives Matter ideology has been embraced and amplified by every mainstream institution in this country,” she said.
While law enforcement officers (and most people of varied political persuasions) across the nation have condemned the horrible arrest and killing of Floyd, the incident has sparked a nationwide backlash against alleged police brutality and racism targeting black Americans.
“As we saw with the first iteration of the Ferguson effect,” police “find themselves surrounded by hostile jeering crowds, cursing at them, throwing bottles,” Mac Donald said.
“Cops were targeted, their throats were slashed, they were firebombed, they were shot at.”
David Dorn, a 77-year-old retired St. Louis police captain, was gunned down while trying to protect his friend’s pawn shop from looters. Dave Patrick Underwood, a 53-year-old federal officer, was shot while on duty during protests in Oakland, California.
Courthouses also have been smashed, defaced, or set on fire. “The most important institutions of the country in preserving law and order, both symbolic and actual, were destroyed,” Mac Donald said.
The Black Lives Matter movement, which has led the protests and efforts to “defund the police,” is built upon a false premise, Mac Donald said.
“The data show that policing is driven by crime, not by race,” she said. “Police shootings are predicted by the rate at which cops encounter armed, violent, resisting suspects.”
According to The Washington Post’s database on police shootings,1,001 people were fatally shot in 2019, including 250 blacks. Only 14 of them were allegedly unarmed. That same year,25 allegedly unarmed whites were killed by police.
