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history of the late 1960s and 1970s has just been crammed into a
few months in Cincinnati — with a race riot, and roiling anti-cop
sentiment that intimidates the police into backing off tough enforcement.
The result is a rolling riot of violent crime that primarily victimizes
blacks.
This was the dynamic that made America's major urban centers nearly
unlivable for decades — a dynamic from which cities like New
York have recovered only recently.
Lately, black agitators and go-along liberals have been trying to
beat back this progress with the club of charges of "racial profiling,"
and other police excesses. If anyone doubts that this crusade is
ideological in nature — simply a political hit against the
cops that does nothing to help minorities, and in fact endangers
their lives — he need look no farther than Cincinnati.
Since the riot, according to the New York Times, "there have
been 59 shooting incidents in the city with 77 gunshot victims,
compared with 9 shootings and 11 victims in the comparable three
months last year." So, this is the fruit of the anti-police riot
and the general drubbing of the police — with accusations of
racism and civil-rights lawsuits — for aggressively patrolling
black neighborhoods.
There are complaints that the Cincinnati police have instituted
a sort of work-stoppage in response to all the criticism. There
has been, for instance, a 55 percent decline in traffic stops in
Cincinnati, which should delight the police critics since these
stops are so associated with "racial profiling" and "Driving While
Black."
But like the anti-cop activists in New York — who complained
about lax enforcement after the Central Park disturbances in the
wake of last year's Puerto Rican Day parade — Cincinnati's
cop critics can't decide whether the police are racist for policing
too much or not enough. Ultimately, it doesn't really matter: The
only important thing is that, one way or another, the police are
being called racist.
In the wake of the Cincinnati riot, the supposedly devastating statistic
about the cops was that in the last six years all 15 suspects killed
by Cincinnati police had been black. But, according to the Times,
all but one of the 77 gunshot victims in the last three months in
Cincinnati have also been black.
This should prove a simple point: that violence and mayhem mostly
affect black urban neighborhoods, so that arrest, shooting, and
other statistics will show an overwhelming racial disparity. This
doesn't mean the cops are racist, but that they are doing their
job, and ultimately saving black lives.
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