Heather MacDonald of the Manhattan Institute is as good as it gets in the debate whether the police are actually an occupying racist army (and let's face it, that -- sometimes in disguised form, and sometimes not so disguised -- is the accusation on the table).
Her column in the National Review starts this way:
New York Times columnist Charles Blow is angry again. This time he's angry at me, among other "tough on crime, fear-mongering iron fist-ers." Also, of course, at the cops. I had debated Blow last week about a Wall Street Journal op-ed of mine on depolicing and crime. Blow followed up with an online column in the Times entitled "Romanticizing 'Broken Windows' Policing." It exemplifies the confusions of the Left about crime and policing.My article had proposed that a rise in violent crime in many cities across the country may be the result of officers' backing off from proactive policing. The last nine months have seen non-stop agitation against the police profession. Officers have routinely been called racists, murderers, and scourges of black communities. Arrests in inner-city communities are even more tense than usual, thanks to the media's constant amplification of the "racist cop" meme. Cops are becoming reluctant to engage in discretionary enforcement, according to their own reports, for fear that if an encounter becomes confrontational, they will become the latest YouTube racist-cop sensation -- or, worse, could find themselves indicted for a crime.
Ms. Mac Donald ends this way:
The article is chock full of facts and well worth the read.The puzzle for the police is what critics like Blow want them to do -- police proactively and be accused of racism, or back off and wait for people to get shot and be accused of a dereliction of duty?
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