Mike McDaniel writes: The President’s spokesliar, Josh Earnest, following a rather convincing—and no doubt, embarrassing–pair of statements by FBI director James Comey about the chilling of the “Ferguson Effect” on our nation’s police, proclaimed that there is no evidence of the Ferguson effect. As with virtually everything else Earnest has to say, personally or on behalf of the President, that’s idiotic and false, yet another twisting or reality in the service of the magnificence and image of Barack Obama.
The Ferguson Effect is the reality that police officers everywhere no longer trust that they will have the support of their superiors and citizens in doing their jobs. They do not have the benefit of the doubt. This is a very serious matter because without that support and the benefit of the doubt, they are finding themselves in danger of lawsuits, arrest and prosecution, and loss of their careers whenever they have to make an arrest of certain classes of citizens, and particularly whenever they have to use force in making those arrests.
Many police officers are risk-averse in the first place. They’ve learned to do as little as possible, because even in the best of times, that serves them well. They’re paid no less than their harder-charging colleagues, they’re more likely to be promoted, they’re probably safer, and they avoid the horrific stresses that come from being involved in even the most minor controversy. It all works because the hard chargers continue to take the risks, catch the really bad guys, and suppress crime.
But what happens when the hard chargers join the ranks of the risk-averse? We’re seeing that—regardless of what pathological liars like Earnest have to say—across the nation. Crime rates rise immediately and dramatically. Criminals immediately take advantage of changes in the enforcement climate and the most violent crimes, crimes relatively rare, suddenly become commonplace. Daily, more petty crimes become the norm, and particularly in big cities, minority communities and the poor are—unlike the lies of common leftist headlines: “poor, minorities hardest hit!”—hardest hit.
Here is a particularly disturbing example, but not for the reasons one might expect. Via Fox News:
“The Justice Department opened a civil rights probe Tuesday into the arrest of a student who refused to leave her high school math class, after a deputy was recorded flipping the girl backward in her desk and tossing her across the classroom floor.”
