Stop and Frisk, Part I: If Urban Black Democrats Are Truly Serious About Solving "Gun Violence" Why Are They Not Demanding Stop and Frisk?
They have no intention of solving it, and there's a glaring obviousness to it
Something deeply pathological is at work in our society.
It manifests seemingly everywhere and it is inescapable. Whether a grocery store gets shot up in Buffalo, New York, or a night club in Orlando. Or an open-air concert in Las Vegas or a Christmas night get-together in the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans. Along a Mardi Gras parade route or while traveling in your car along Interstate 10 in New Orleans East. Even while sitting at your desk at school learning the multiplication tables.
Though this perverse social illness manifests in other areas of life - kids cutting themselves up, a 20% drop in the nation’s birth rate, the unprecedented levels of prescribed anti-depressant pharmaceutical medication - much of the focus is on the random and heinous nature of “gun violence.”
“It’s the guns!”
The Democrats’ thinly-reasoned explanation for the violence is the means, not the cause: “GUNS!”
Because, of course, a hunk of steel can load itself with bullets, aim itself at a moving human target, and pull its own trigger.
You’re a fool if you don’t think it can’t - just ask any Democrat, who will swiftly remind you of your naivete.
(And only your naivete if you’re lucky: they won’t stop there… they’ll accuse you of “caring more for guns than kids!”)
Let’s play along with their silly game for a moment and let’s agree that “it’s the guns.”
(Frankly, I wish it were, because there is a real solution that would have a material impact.)
Under the banner of “LET THE KIDS LEAD” Democrats cheered as teenagers flooded the Tennessee state house after the Covenant School killings. And Tennessee’s was not the only capitol to be raided by “DO SOMETHING ABOUT GUN VIOLENCE!” protestors.
Never shy about public protests, why are not the Democrats demanding a proven solution? A solution that has been tested on the streets of America’s biggest city, which could be enacted right here in New Orleans?
When will local Democrats demand “Stop and Frisk” policing tactics?
Let me say that again so that the Democrats who read The BEC can understand:
If you sincerely want to impact gun violence, if you truly want to take guns out of the hands of the very people most prone to using them, why are you not swamping City Hall - SHUT IT DOWN! - demanding that police use “Stop and Frisk” tactics as a proven-effective method to reduce gun killings?
Let’s consider New York - and our source is NBC News (not Breitbart or OAN or FOX.)
A 2020 article written by Lawrence Rosenthal focused on the stunning effectiveness of “Stop and Frisk” in New York City, especially to the benefit of black citizens:
“People of color bear the brunt of violent crime. At the peak of New York's crime wave in 1991, the homicide victimization rate in New York was 58 per 100,000 for people of African ancestry, 44 for Hispanics and 8 for whites. By 2007, the black homicide victimization rate had declined to 15.9 per 100,000 population, the Hispanic rate to 4.9 and the white rate to 1.55. Thus, the lives saved by New York's policies were disproportionately those of people of color.
From 58 dead black bodies to 16 per 100,000 — thanks to “Stop and Frisk” policing tactics. From 44 dead Hispanic bodies to 5.
These are people of color!
Let’s hear more about this very effective tool against “gun violence” …
Targeted stop-and-frisk policing makes a great deal of sense. When undertaken with frequency and carried out at hot spots of drug- and firearms-related crime, stop-and-frisk tactics can alter the perceptions of potential offenders by making apparent the risks of carrying drugs or guns in public. Once drugs and guns are driven off the streetscape, the risks of violent confrontation decrease and community destabilization driven by open and notorious criminality can be reversed. In contrast, a reactive strategy, which has police appear only when someone calls 911, encourages offenders to intimidate the community so no one calls for help.
Mr. Rosenthal reminds us…
The Supreme Court has ruled, however, that stop-and-frisk is constitutional when based on an officer's reasonable suspicion that lawbreaking is under way, even though that standard "falls considerably short of satisfying a preponderance of the evidence standard" and "accepts the risk that officers may stop innocent people."
Critics of “Stop and Frisk” are all the usual suspects, the Malcolm Subers of the world, who claim the tactic is over-used and targets black people.
BUT BLACK PEOPLE DISPROPORTIONATELY COMMIT VIOLENT CRIME and are DISPROPORTIONATELY VICTIMS OF VIOLENT CRIME!
Which problem will black urban Democrats prefer: the perception of “racial profiling” in effective policing? or a continual unbroken chain of shot-up black bodies each and every unrelenting day in our cities?
The BEC is laying down the challenge for black activists and city leaders.
Demonstrate your seriousness about removing guns from the hands of murderers and drug-pushing criminals by advocating - indeed DEMANDING - “Stop and Frisk” policing in New Orleans.
Do it, and this writer will stand side-by-side with you every step of the way.
If “Black Lives Matter” to you… if you truly care and all your protests are not just bluster and noise, then show the initiative needed by the seriousness of the deathly problem, and not only “Do Something!” but “Do the Thing That’s Been Proven To WORK!”
If the problem is indeed “The Guns!” then let’s take the guns out of the hands of the criminals on the street in a most direct way.
Democrats run this city…
What are you all waiting for?