The war on police and other liberal policies are wreaking havoc on America’s cities. Crime — especially violent crime — seems to rise in direct proportion to the implementation of liberal policies by liberal politicians. A comparison of the crime rates of Democrat-run cities taking statistics from 2020 and 2021 shows an alarming and dangerous trend.
A segment of Greg Kelly Reports by Newsmax featured journalist and author Andy Ngo as the guest. Kelly and Ngo discussed the increased crime in America’s Democrat-controlled cities. After showing a clip of the current resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue blaming the crime spike on a combination of “the traditional summer spike” and America “opening back up again” after “this pandemic,” Kelly asserted that Biden’s “explanation is simply ridiculous. “When you compare it year over year, you can’t say it’s the summer, because you’re comparing it against … the summer,” Kelly said, adding, “When it’s higher than it was last year — and way higher than it was two years ago — stop it, stop it. You’re being disingenuous.”
Kelly’s point is spot-on. To even mention the “traditional summer spike” is to attempt to muddy the water. Given that crime rates have risen exponentially, the only way Biden could have — with any attempt at legitimacy or integrity — mentioned the “traditional summer spike” would have been to say something along the lines of, “The traditional summer spike has little to do with the crime wave threatening many of America’s cities.” That, at least, would have addressed the reality that people living in those cities face.
For instance, data from police departments and the National Fraternal Order of Police on year-to-date changes in homicides as of May 2021 shows an uptick in murders that would be difficult to imagine if it were not a reality. Chicago — long considered one of the most dangerous places to live in America — has seen a 22-percent increase in murders in the last year. New York City has the same increase. Los Angeles is up 27 percent. Washington, D.C., has seen a 35-percent rise. Philadelphia is up 40 percent. In Atlanta, the increase in murders is 50 percent. Minneapolis is up 56 percent. And Portland has a hard-to-wrap-your-head-around murder increase of 800 percent. That is not a typo. 800 percent. That is eight times as many people dead at the hands of a murderer than the year before.
An interesting thing to note about these statistics is the way the Left attempts to deal with them. Besides the nearly-incoherent remarks quoted above from the current resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, there is also an equally hard-to-follow attempt by that darling of the Left, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Without disputing the veracity of the statistics, Ocasio-Cortez expressed her concern that “this doesn’t drive a hysteria” and that people “look at these numbers in context.”
And in an article claiming that the numbers don’t reflect on the Democrat leadership of those cities, the News Tribune out of Jefferson City, Missouri, decided to brush the whole thing off by splitting hairs, reporting:
In Portland, homicides were up from six in the first five months of 2020 to 38 in the first five months of 2021, according to city police data, a more than 530 percent increase. That’s lower than the 800 percent increase claimed by the Fraternal Order of Police, which said it was based on homicides through May 25.
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Oh, well then! If murders are only up 530 percent (based on the way this particular newspaper chooses to count things), then maybe this isn’t nearly as bad as the National FOP would have us all believe. I mean, after all, it’s only 530 percent instead the truly alarming 800 percent the News Tribune claims was falsely reported. But then again, even this is likely an example of the maxim, “Figures don’t lie, but liars figure.” Given that the News Tribune is clearly attempting to downplay the reality, I think I’ll trust the report claiming an 800-percent increase.
I’ll also dismiss the ridiculous notion that leftists and their anti-police, soft-on-crime policies are not to blame. Because the facts show the truth.
As Ngo says in the segment with Kelly, “Almost all of the spikes in violent crime can be attributed to one particular event, which is the death of George Floyd and then the riots that convulsed not just Portland, but really the entire country.” Ngo went on to say, “The sad irony here is that BLM and Antifa say that they are rioting and looting for Black Lives Matter, but the people who are dying in Portland are predominantly black.”
When asked about the message that New York City’s decision not to prosecute rioters sent to those who may seek violence as a tool for social change, Ngo said, “It tells them that if you are rioting for left-wing causes, that you have the A-OK to do so in Left-wing cities.” He pointed to the fact that New York City’s decision not to prosecute is not an anomaly, saying, “Portland has had more than 1,000 people who were arrested over 12 months of rioting. And more than 90 percent of them have their cases dropped. And these include people who are charged with things — felonious crimes, such as arson, assault, vandalism — and essentially the message in Portland is ‘We support why you’re doing it, so we’re going to let you go.’”
Is it any wonder that when liberal cities reward violence, violent crime increases? Of course murders are up in Democrat-controlled cities; If you sow the wind, you reap the whirlwind. Allowing — even praising — violence in the streets of these cities, their Democrat “leaders” have created a situation where violence is expected, accepted, and is on the rise.
And lest the statistics listed above seem like just numbers, remember that each of those numbers represents a real human being who is dead because of leftist policies. Black lives do not matter to them; no lives matter to them. Murder and mayhem are merely tools at their disposal to effect social change. And dead people? Well, that’s just the price of progressive progress to them.
