The War on America is Getting Black and Blue

As of July 2020 there has been a 28% jump in felonious officer deaths and violent crime in America’s 50 largest cities is up 24% as of July. Anti-police rhetoric espoused by groups affirming the messages of the BLM movement and politicians attempting to leverage the movement for their gain, are helping to fan the flames of violence across the US. If we cannot come together to reaffirm the rule of law the death and destruction will only increase.

Police Under Siege:

The cost of anti-police sentiment expressed in heated political rhetoric, especially from local and national leadership and media, is manifesting its self in attacks on police throughout the nation, leaving cops around the country feeling under siege.

The data is clear, periods of civil unrest coincided with an increase in police killings and anti-police sentiment helps embolden offenders. BLM’s mission statement charges police with being the agents of “violence inflicted on Black communities by the state.” The rhetoric of BLM calls for defunding the police in retaliation for “state-sanctioned violence and anti-Black racism” that they say is institutional throughout the nation.

It is not it coincidental that the spike in police slayings has occurred during this tumultuous time in which hostilities have been aimed at law enforcement personnel and BLM is actively scapegoating police for what they see as “the rampant and deliberate violence inflicted on [blacks] by the state.” Any time the anti-police rhetoric heats up, it sends a message that it’s open season on law enforcement.

 The data that coordinates active civil unrest in leftist movements against law enforcement and increases in violence against police are undeniable. Slayings of police officers surged 61% from 41 in 2015 to 66 in 2016, including 17 who were ambushed, according to the FBI data. Two years earlier in 2014, 51 police officers were slain in the line of duty up from 27 in 2013, an 89% jump. Seven of the officers were ambushed. And in 2011, the year where Occupy Wall Street protesters clashed with police, law enforcement officers killed increased 28% to 72, including 15 who were ambushed.

BLM declared war on the American system and western civilization at large as systematically racist and the front line attack in their war is to undermine the rule of law and attack the police who are the first line of defense against violent crime. The results are proving particularly disastrous for blank Americans. As police and their families grapple with the terrible attacks on their service from both criminals and political leaders, attacks on police and law and order will have the greatest negative impact on the communities most at risk of violent crime and many black Americans will be caught in the upheaval with deadly consequences.

The Collateral Damage:

The open season on police coincides with an alarming increase in violent crime in which most of the victims are black and most of the perpetrators are criminals taking advantage of the attacks on police and civil unrest which is being fueled by the rhetoric of the BLM movement.

According to the Wall Street Journal “homicides, shootings, and gun violence in the 50 largest cities rose in 2020, with murders, in particular increasing by 24% so far this year, to 3,612. Thirty-six of the 50 cities have experienced at least a 10% rise in homicides.”

The Washington Examiner reported, “Chicago, the city with the most number of homicides, is averaging one about every eight nights. The total number of murders in the city in July climbed 139% compared to the same month in 2019. There were 105 homicides in July compared to 44 in the previous year, and the city is up 51% from the same point last year.” Fox News reported that “Chicago had 31 murders from July 6 to July 12 – a 417 percent increase from the 6 murders recorded during the same time last year. There have been 385 murders this year to date, a 48 percent increase year-over-year. July 4th weekend was particularly grim. One of Chicago’s bloodiest holiday weekends in memory ended with 17 people fatally shot, including a 7-year-old girl and a 14-year-old boy, and 70 more wounded.”

The Atlanta police department released numbers for July 2020 that showed a 240% jump in murders from that same period in 2019. Murders in Houston have increased by 37 percent, from 140 in 2019 to 178 this year, according to a July 8 report. The Los Angeles Police Department’s statistics show there have been 151 murders so far this year, an increase of 12.7 percent, and this amid some of the strictest COVID shutdown orders in the country.

The number of shootings skyrocketed in New York City with a 277 percent increase and Police said 97 percent of shooting victims were people of color. Philadelphia Police Department reported 224 murders so far this year, a 25 percent increase compared to the 178 reported at the same time in 2019.

BLM states on their website that “In affirming that Black Lives Matter, we need not qualify our position.” With the heated rhetoric of BLM being adopted by the Democrat party and the main stream media, it’s time for the BLM and their allies in the Democrat party and main stream media to qualify their position. If affirmation to the obviously true sentiment that black lives matter denotes complicity with the movement that has inspired anti-police violence and led to less protection for black Americans as inner city violence skyrockets, then the entire sentiment is lost in the violent realities playing out in American cities in the name of social justice.

A Common Bond:

The data is clear that attacks against law enforcement officers correlate with times when rhetoric is high and that attacks against law enforcement result in a surge in violent crime of which the greatest percent of victims are black. This data suggests a great fallacy in the BLM proposition that the greatest threat to black lives is “state-sanctioned” violence.

The BLM message is one in which the police have been painted as the bad guys, they are the face of the so called “racist system” and therefore people who attack police and subvert law and order are vindicated. This rhetoric prompted by the BLM movement and embraced by the Democrat party and main stream media has played a significant role in the escalating violence against police and against inner city communities. If the rhetoric and trends follow the same patterns then the loss of lives, both black and blue, will continue to go up!

The one inescapable conclusion we can settle on is that the well being of both police and the communities they serve are inextricably connected. When police are under attack so are the citizens they serve. When law and order breaks down the only winners are the criminals and the greatest victims are the inner city poor.