DOES BLM POSE A DANGER TO THE BLACK COMMUNITY?

Black Lives Mater May Be A Contributing Factor For Nation’s Rising Homicide Rate

By Ron Martinelli, Ph.D

Running Code 3 (from America Out Loud)
January 7, 2018

The FBI just released their homicide statistics and the nation’s top 30 cities with the highest homicide rates in 2015 have been categorized. While there are some surprises in new-comer cities such as Salinas, CA with a 150% increase, and Waco, TX with a whopping 240% increase in their homicide rates from 2014, the usual suspect cities remain on the list, with some cities actually climbing higher towards the top of the list.

St. Louis, MO, is now the nation’s most dangerous city, with nearly 60 murders per 100,000 population. This figure represents an 18% increase in per capita in homicides from 2014, as well as an astronomical 490% increase in killings over the state average of 10 murders for every 100,000 citizens.

Your top ten most violent cities for 2015 are in descending order: Baltimore with an amazing 71% increase and 60 murders per 100,000; followed by Detroit at 44, New Orleans at 42, Birmingham, AL with 37 and a 48% increase; Jackson, MS with 31; Baton Rouge at 26; Hartford, CT at 26 with a 73% increase; Salinas at 25, Milwaukee with 24 and Washington, DC at 24 killings per 100,000 with a 50% increase over its 2014 murder rate.

In essence, you would be safer as a military combatant on patrol, clearing ISIS strong- holds, than walking the mean streets of these violent cities.

While the Uniform Crime Report (UCR) for the past few years indicates that violent crime nationwide has gone down slightly, the homicide rates for most of our nation’s largest cities has actually continued to rise; with some cities we can see experiencing dramatic rises in their murder rates.

Why is this?

Well, as a criminologist, that’s what I want to know. Socio-criminally, I will tell you that the vast majority of violent crimes stem from deeper cause and effect factors such as severe poverty, lack of parenting, a lack of resonance in education and development of meaningful job skills, alcohol/drug abuse and sales, gang activity and illegal alien crime. These have been historic problems within the inner city and minority communities. Let’s face it. Not a lot of people are being bumped off in Beverly Hills, CA, or out in The Hamptons.

The extreme disparity in the murder rate of Salinas, CA (pop. 150,000) in 2015 of 25 murders per/100,000 people (150% increase over 2014); as compared to Southern California’s Corona, CA (pop. 166,000) with 5 total homicides with similar racial demographics, speaks far beyond the issues of race and so-called “white privilege.” People, politicians and criminologists have to begin asking serious and far more ‘politically in- correct’ questions such as, “Just what the heck else is going on in these cities to cause their homicide rates to climb into the stratosphere?”

Well, it appears as if the Marxist, militant anti-police, anti-government organization Black Lives Matter is in part playing a role in the significant rise in our nation’s homicide rate. How so? Well for one thing, the radical efforts of the BLM through community and political pressure and meddling, negatively impact the physical and psychological well-being of law enforcement officers patrolling the mean streets of cities such as St. Louis, MO, Baltimore, Hartford, Baton Rouge, Washington, DC, Milwaukee, and even small Salinas, CA.

As a retired detective and a crime researcher, I can attest that being a cop in the U.S. is one of the most dangerous, physically and mentally challenging, unappreciated and low-paying jobs in the nation. Ever since the false narrative, never-happened “Hands up. Don’t shoot” officer-involved shooting of felon and bully Michael Brown by victim Officer Darren Wilson occurred in Ferguson, MO, officers have had their backs up against the wall both politically and in reality. Just who perpetrated the false narrative of “Hands up; don’t shoot?” Black Lives Matter did.
The BLM also forwarded the now forensically proven false narrative that Baltimore police officers “murdered” Freddie Gray in the back of a police transport van. That of course, never happened. But those false narratives didn’t stop the BLM from rioting in the streets of Ferguson, Baltimore and other cities where they fought with police and burned down black owned businesses. Since Black Lives Matter established chapters in those communities, the violent crime and homicide rates in those cities have soared.

The psychological almost PTSD “Ferguson Effect” upon officer morale in this country, in large part caused by Black Lives Matter political intrigue, has been researched and found to be quite accurate.

In response to the salacious, false narratives of so called “systemic, organized police violence against minority races” and the “execution of unarmed blacks by police;” politically expedient politicians nationwide, not wanting to have bands of Black Lives Matter provocateurs, marauders and arsonists visit their cities and destroy their downtown business districts (ala Ferguson and Baltimore); have ratified and acquiesced to some elements of the BLM’s Campaign Zero plan for law enforcement which seeks to disenfranchise, diminish, defund and dissolve law enforcement’s presence in their communities.

Police officers, who have historically complained about the lack of leadership at the top levels of their departments, have been forced to cope with their own chiefs bending to BLM supportive mayors and city councils who are seeking through ignorant policies to change the policing paradigm that thwarts law enforcement’s ability to proactively mitigate and reduce violent and property crimes. For example, in New York City, the very effective crime reducing “stop and frisk” program is gone. In Seattle, WA, the city council just authorized a change in their police use of force policy referred to as “proportional force.” This is extremely dangerous policy requires officers to only use controlling or defensive force equal to the resistive violence used by suspects against them. What?! The very object of controlling or defensive force is to overcome suspect violence and resistance; not prolong it. This policy is not only extremely dangerous to officers, but it is inconsistent with constitutional case law and legal police practices.

It is far more than coincidental that Black Lives Matter has a chapter, a Facebook and/or an active physical presence in nearly every one of America’s thirty most violent cities. As police morale plummets because officers have been increasingly disenfranchised from their own communities, the crime rates in those same cities has risen to astronomical heights.

In the #3 most violent city Detroit, MI where their 2015 homicide rate was 44% higher than the previous year and other violent and property crimes are through the roof, police arrest rates have dropped 80% from 300 arrests a day down to 60 according to Police Commander Steve Dolunt. The unappreciated police in that violent city are expected to take on violent criminals, critical politicians and community activist Black Lives Matter members for a salary of $8/hour after taxes and pension deductions.

Police morale in our nation’s #2 most violent city Baltimore, is so bad that the city’s Police Commissioner recently cancelled all leaves due to insufficient manpower to run the department’s daily operations. The reasons given? Failing police recruitment and retention problems; low staffing, pension issues, riots and political interference by Black Lives Matter.

In our nation’s #4 most violent city New Orleans, the New Orleans PD has been losing one officer every three days since 2010. In a recent poll of its officers, 75% said that the department and city are worse off than they were three years ago. The polled officers cite citizen discontent, unfair, politically motivated Internal Affairs investigations, lack of equipment, poor equipment, poor leadership and political interference as the reasons for their lack of resonance in doing their jobs. It is no wonder that the New Orleans murder rate rose 40% from 2014 to 2015.

In all three cities – Detroit, Baltimore and New Orleans, Black Lives Matter has active chapters and have repeatedly organized violent anti-police protests.

Black Lives Matter poses an extreme danger to the black community

Black Lives Matter brings nothing but trouble for the black community its leaders purport to support. The reality is that the BLM does nothing but exacerbate the problem of violent crime and homicides in the black community because its intended anti-police activities reduce police morale. This in turn causes officers who feel that they are poorly led, horribly paid, under appreciated and disenfranchised, to curtail their proactive enforcement efforts which historically has proven to be a very effective violent and property crime reduction strategy. This helps no one.

FBI UCR crime statistics for 2016 document that black homicides of 12.37 per 100,000 blacks were nearly 1,200% higher than white homicides at 1.4 /100,000 and nearly 600% higher than Hispanic homicides at 2.5/100,000. Black robbery rates at 104 per 100,000 black persons were four times higher than Hispanic robberies at 23/100,000 and over ten times the white on white robbery rate at 10/100,000. Blacks sexually assaulting other blacks at 13.5/100,000 were twice as high as Hispanic sexual assaults at 7/100,000 and over three times higher than white on white sexual assaults at 4/100,000.

Sufficed to say, urban blacks seeking a safer and less violent environment would be foolish to encourage the presence or “support” of a Black Lives Matter chapter in their community. Then why do they? The answer is easy. They just don’t the truth about the Black Lives Matter movement and its war on police who protect the rule of law.

Black Lives Matter are shrewd manipulators of the black community and media

The leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement are shrewd operators and manipulators of the social and mainstream media. They forward knowingly false narratives about police, while presenting themselves as fighters of the oppressed. When uninformed people resonate with emotionally based and highly charged anti-police, anti-government rhetoric, it is difficult for them to consider forensic facts. It’s a simple as that.

As one can see, there are unintended consequences for supporting the propaganda and actions of the Black Lives Matter movement. When you live in a high-crime community and you disenfranchise your police; you effectively remove all options and solutions towards reducing your violent crime rate. In effect, you become hostages in your own homes without a safety net.

You cannot force your police to take unacceptable risks to help you when they believe you cannot be trusted to support them when the chips are down. After all, it’s a fact that Black Lives Matter won’t be showing up at your door to risk their lives when you call 9-1-1 in the middle of the night. Just some food for thought.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Dr. Martinelli, a forensic criminologist and former cop, also states “I can attest that being a cop in the U.S. is one of the most dangerous, physically and mentally challenging, unappreciated and low-paying jobs in the nation.”

Martinelli mau have hurt his credibility when he mentions the low pay of cops. While I agree that cops should be paid more, today policing is one of the better paying occupations. Most teachers, for example, earn lower salaries than most cops.

But Martinelli is spot on about the danger cops face and that they are unappreciated. He could have added that the police are hated by BLN, by many members of the black community and by many white liberals.