"Activists," academics, and others in the "I'm-smarter-than-you-are" crowd tell us that when the cops are routinely denounced as thugs, when a big city mayor says that rioters throwing bricks and bottles at them  must be given "space to destroy," and when that same city's state's attorney holds a political rally news conference at which she lifts murder charges against the police like a head on a pole, there will be no effect on crime.