Crime Comeback: The Obama-Holder-Lynch Effect In New York.
10/07/2017
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If you count the shooter himself, the total number of dead in that Las Vegas atrocity was 59. As it happens, that was also the number of dead by homicide in Chicago during the month of September, every single one of them a shooting, just like in Las Vegas.

The other stats are different here, though. The age range is from 14 to 66: median 27, mean 30, standard deviation 11. So far as one can judge from the names, I get 4 females and 55 males ; thirteen are listed as "white,", the other 46 all black. Names of the victims listed as "white": Batista, Domagala, Cortez, Monteza, Sandoval, Arvizu, Canno, another Sandoval, Bahena, Rayborn, Hernandez, Lopez, and Vargas.

So the Chicago 59 are younger, way blacker, way more male, and hardly at all non-Hispanic white — only that Rayborn, first name Joshua, though I suppose Canno — her first name is Michelle — may be non-Hispanic, and Domagala — first name Bernard — might be Italian-American.

That was the harvest in America's third most populous city: 59 dead in the month of September, same number as last Sunday's Las Vegas toll.

I haven't been to Chicago since 1970-something. It sounds like things are really bad over there. New York City has three times Chicago's population; yet homicides here in September were just 19. That means your average Chicagoan is nine point three times as homicidal as your average New Yorker. That's a hell of a differential.

There's trouble lurking in the New York statistics, though. In one precinct — the 42nd, in the Bronx — September killings were up to six this year from two last September.

What accounts for the rise? The New York Post investigated. "It's career preservation," a precinct cop told them. Further quote from the Post investigation:

Law-enforcement sources said the alarming situation is the result of a spate of civil-rights lawsuits, which recently led a detective to file a $175 million notice of claim against the city on grounds that it's too eager to settle such cases.

It also comes against the backdrop of a nationwide outcry against aggressive policing. Scores of NFL players have being kneeling during the national anthem at games to protest police brutality.

Cops throughout the 42nd Precinct, which covers the Morrisania section, are steering clear of encounters that could land them in court or in front of the city's Civilian Complaint Review Board for alleged brutality, a law-enforcement source said.

In short, the Ferguson effect … although I still think it should more properly be called the Obama-Holder-Lynch effect.

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