It begins, as all things do these days, with the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner. Like the twists and turns of a meandering stream, their deaths lead to an ever-widening array of ominous consequences.
After months of careful deliberation, the grand juries in Ferguson and NYC found no cause to indict the patrolmen involved in the deaths of Brown and Garner. But to those who sympathized with the deceased, it was just another miscarriage of justice. When a white policeman shoots a black person, he is by their definition guilty. The rage began.
Christmas became the season to do shopping through broken store windows and smashed through doors, for riots and mayhem causing millions of dollars in property damage.
Two hundred miles distant from NYC, a black Muslim, Ismaaily Brinsley, set out on a mission to avenge the deaths of Brown and Garner. He did so on December 20 when he shot and killed two police officers as they sat in their patrol car.
The Mayor of NYC Bill de Blasio was obligated by office and by common sense to standby the beleaguered police force. He chose to do the opposite. He intimated that the NYPD was partly responsible for the deaths of the two murdered officers.
“The relationship between police and community has to change,” said de Blasio at a news conference. “People need to know that black lives matter as much as whites. We are dealing with centuries of racism that have brought us to this day.”
The NYPD, with more than a germ of truth blamed de Blasio for inflaming the racial tensions that motivated a madman like Brinsley.
The department made it understood that de Blasio was not welcome at the wake for one of the officers. It even hired a plane with a streamer, “De Blasio, Our Backs Have Turned To You.” De Blasio disregarded this. He arrived at the wake two hours late, spoke a few words, and left after 15 minutes.
The relationship between the mayor and the NYPD continued to deteriorate. The head of the Patrolman’s Benevolent Association Pat Lynch said de Blasio had “blood” on his hands for the deaths of the two officers. Lynch advised the 34,000 uniformed officers to avoid making arrests “unless absolutely necessary.” The result is something between a slowdown and a strike.
Traffic and parking violations dropped from a year-to-year total of 25,000 in 2013 to 1,800 in 2014, a decrease of 93 percent with a corresponding loss of revenue from fines.
So, how much is the city losing?
That figure is not released yet. However, NYC had a police slowdown in 2011. It cost the city a “minimum of nearly $1 million a week thanks to a ticket-writing slowdown by cops,” reported the New York Post. The 2014 drop of 93 percent in parking and moving traffic violations that began December 20 and is ongoing could cost the city double that. And that's quite a hit.
But that's far from the worst of it. There was a 66 percent drop in overall arrests. Here's what might be happening.
An officer sees what experience tells him is a drug deal. Should he investigate and risk a white-cop-black-suspect incident in a high-crime neighborhood? What if the situation escalates? Similar crime stops spun out of control over a box of stolen cigars (Michael Brown) and selling loose cigarettes (Eric Garner).
He checks the balance sheet. Asset side: I gain nothing by investigating. Liability side: By investigating I jeopardize my job, pension, a misconduct letter in my file, getting death threats, being accused of racial profiling, becoming the focus of a DOJ investigation, being in the eye of a racial hurricane, raked over hot coals by the media, and the cause of a wrongful arrest lawsuit or civil rights litigation. He looks the other way and drives by.
Multiply this by the number of overall arrests that decreased from 2013 to 2014, that's 3,600. Now ask yourself this question: What happens to a neighborhood, a city, when the police are no longer able to police?
Sincerely,
Bob Scroggins
New Milford, PA