The War on Cops

 

heathermacThe timing of Heather MacDonald’s new book, The War on Cops: How the New Attack on Law and Order Makes Everyone Less Safe, tragically, could not be better. And the same could be said of this week’s episode of the Harvard Lunch Club Political Podcast, Heather MacDonald: War on Cops, where my partner Todd Feinburg and I discuss the book and the onslaught against policing in America with our good friend Heather. We could not, of course, imagine what new battlefield in that war would open up as the week unfolded.

Ms. MacDonald is, for those of you who have been out of the solar system lately, one of the nation’s foremost authorities on the criminal justice system, the intertwined problems of race and crime in our city streets and the onslaught against the police by the liberal elite and their allies in the media, culminating with the #BlackLivesMatter movement of the past two years. She popularized the term “Ferguson effect” to describe how this assault on the police has caused officers nationwide to revert to a reactive rather than a proactive mode of policing, and how in turn crime rates across the country have spiked in response. As Heather said on her previous appearance on the HLC podcast: “No government organization is more firmly dedicated to the proposition that Black lives matter than the police.”

Evidently this opinion is not held universally.

A few outtakes from our interview with Heather:

We’re in the midst of the greatest delegitimation of law enforcement in recent memory. Certainly the Obama Administration has been the most anti-law enforcement administration in recorded history.

And the effects of this [that] we see promulgated by the #BlackLivesMatter movement and its media enablers is that officers are backing off of proactive policing. And as a result, crime in big cities, above all cities with large Black populations is going up at a very alarming rate.

Regarding the justifiable outrage at police shootings of seemingly harmless suspects, MacDonald does not blanch:

Policing is extraordinarily professional now. Yes, there are bad apples and they come in all colors and there have been a handful of very bad shootings in the last two years. But they are a minute portion of the encounters that the police have every year with armed and dangerous felons.

As for the activists and politicians – she specifically cites Mayor De Blasio of New York – who are actively undermining the police in their jurisdictions, MacDonald says:

I speak to law-abiding residents of inner city communities all the time who say they want more policing, not less; that they back the cops, that the only time they feel safe to go into their building lobby or out on the street is when the cops are there. And yet those voices are not reflected by and large by either the Black activists or in Democratic politicians.

Finally, when asked whether the assault on the police – or the effects of the assault on police to undermine law enforcement – were limited to those geographic regions under the control of Democratic governance and whether removing those mayors, etc. would solve the problems, she said presciently:

Well, the Ferguson effect would not be cured. I recently was contacted by a bunch of Dallas cops and they said we want you to know that the Ferguson effect and the crime increase is not just a blue state, blue city problem. We’re a red state and red city here. They had a 73 percent increase in homicides in the first quarter of this year.

I don’t suppose that Heather MacDonald, or any of us, anticipated just how deadly the war on cops was about to become. But when it comes to a deep, empirically founded comprehension of the dynamics of the inner cities and the looming return of chaos to our streets, there are precious few who rival Ms. MacDonald.

You can listen to the whole interview here.

[If you enjoyed this post and the linked podcast, and if you are not a member of Ricochet, please join up and meet me in the comments, and please subscribe to the Harvard Lunch Club Political Podcast].

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  1. James Madison Member
    James Madison
    @JamesMadison

    Michael Stopa: Policing is extraordinarily professional now. Yes, there are bad apples and they come in all colors and there have been a handful of very bad shootings in the last two years. But they are a minute portion of the encounters that the police have every year with armed and dangerous felons.

    This quote from Ms. MacDonald is it in a nut shell.

    • #1
  2. Dr. Steve Turley Inactive
    Dr. Steve Turley
    @DrSteveTurley

    I heard her interviewed on the Rush Limbaugh show this afternoon; scholarship at its best! I look forward to reading this!

    • #2
  3. Nick Stuart Inactive
    Nick Stuart
    @NickStuart

    Dr. Steve Turley:I heard her interviewed on the Rush Limbaugh show this afternoon; scholarship at its best! I look forward to reading this!

    Limbaugh has guests only very, very rarely. He’s not a stop on the book tour circuit by any means.

    Being on Limbaugh probably strapped a Saturn V booster onto MacDonald’ s book sales, and well deserved too.

    • #3
  4. BD Member
    BD
    @

    Heather MacDonald is great.

    • #4
  5. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    Michael Stopa: Ms. MacDonald is, for those of you who have been out of the solar system lately, one of the nation’s foremost authorities on the criminal justice system, the intertwined problems of race and crime in our city streets and the onslaught against the police by the liberal elite and their allies in the media, culminating with the #BlackLivesMatter movement of the past two years.

    Never heard of her before.  I don’t listen to podcasts, so thank you for the introduction and the quotes.  Sounds like she’s a valuable person to have around.

    • #5
  6. Eugene Kriegsmann Member
    Eugene Kriegsmann
    @EugeneKriegsmann

    Heather MacDonald is always terrific, both in interview and in print. It was nice to be able to listen the podcast and not have to turn it off because of the sometimes nauseating fauning over Donald Trump. Prior to that phase of the podcast I very much enjoyed your commentary. However, at one point the entire thrust was worshipping at the alter of the Great Pumpkin. I am glad that that seems to be over.

    The comments on Cory Booker were interesting, but seemed somewhat naive to me. Booker is a politician whose entire schtick is to be appealing to the public. All politcians have the ability to find a touchstone of commonality with the public (barring Hillary Clinton, who has none). That quality is, perhaps their most appealing and,  simultaneously, their most cynical. I was very surprised that for all of Todd’s apparent cynicism, he was unable to see through Booker, but I suppose that the same blindness is what makes him an undying fan of Trump.

    • #6
  7. Randy Webster Inactive
    Randy Webster
    @RandyWebster

    The Reticulator: Never heard of her before.

    I first ran into her in the City Journal.

    • #7
  8. Michael Stopa Member
    Michael Stopa
    @MichaelStopa

    Eugene Kriegsmann:Heather MacDonald is always terrific, both in interview and in print. It was nice to be able to listen the podcast and not have to turn it off because of the sometimes nauseating fauning over Donald Trump. Prior to that phase of the podcast I very much enjoyed your commentary. However, at one point the entire thrust was worshipping at the alter of the Great Pumpkin. I am glad that that seems to be over.

    The comments on Cory Booker were interesting, but seemed somewhat naive to me. Booker is a politician whose entire schtick is to be appealing to the public. All politcians have the ability to find a touchstone of commonality with the public (barring Hillary Clinton, who has none). That quality is, perhaps their most appealing and, simultaneously, their most cynical. I was very surprised that for all of Todd’s apparent cynicism, he was unable to see through Booker, but I suppose that the same blindness is what makes him an undying fan of Trump.

    Todd is not an undying fan of Trump, Eugene. I am.

    Todd is an iconoclast. He dearly loves to see the smug, empowered elites get what’s coming to ’em. He often goes off on how Trump is destroying his campaign with his blathering.

    In any case, thanks for listening to the show!

    • #8
  9. EHerring Coolidge
    EHerring
    @EHerring

    I first read her research on this in an issue of Imprimus. Once the issue was online, I linked to it on Facebook to spread her information and did get “likes” on it. I heard the Rush interview and downloaded the Kindle edition the next day.  I consider it valuable to pushing back the lies and the agenda behind the lies.

    The conspiracy folks will be all over the growing chaos as proof of their theory that Obama would generate chaos to cancel the election and stay in power. My view is it is an expected result of creating a secular utopia that condemns and refuses to teach our founding values. Throughout history, societies that have turned their back on God have been punished. The future will hold far worse no matter who is elected.   The cancer is in the culture. Even the atheist is wise to prefer living in a Christian rather than a secular society.

    The Ferguson Effect will spread. God bless the cops who protect us.

    • #9
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