The Ferguson Effect – How BLM Worsened Black on Black Violence in the US

Executive Summary

• BLM talks about reducing the deaths of black men.
• They have had the opposite effect on black murder statistics in the US.

Introduction

BLM focused very heavily on the number of blacks killed by police. However, they never discussed the overall black murder rate of other blacks. The number of blacks killed by police was always very small compared to the overall black murder rate. What is very important is what happened after the BLM policies like defunding the police took effect for 2021.

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The Massive Increase in the Black Murder Rate

Around 90% of blacks that are murdered are murdered by other blacks. Observe the following statistics.

In 2019, before the “defund the police” movement, 7,777 black people were murdered, making up 53.5% of all homicide victims. That was already bad, but in 2020, both of those numbers rose; 9,941 black people were murdered the year George Floyd died, accounting for 55.8% of all murders. That is an additional 2,000 black lives lost to violent crime last year. In contrast, only 60 unarmed men were killed by police in 2020, and only 18 of those were black. – Washington Examiner

BLM has tried to present all murders of blacks by police as unlawful killings. BLM makes sure to leave out the story or even make up stories regarding the deaths of blacks at the hands of police. However, of roughly 325 blacks killed per year by police, only around 18 are unarmed. Why are these other 300 or so blacks armed? BLM never addresses that issue. BLM has a point that even when police are at fault, for any race, it is rare for police to be prosecuted. However, our view is that all lives lost must be counted the same way. A black person killed by a police officer through either an error or through malicious intent is not somehow 20x worse than a black person murdered by another black person. However, when the topic is black-on-black violence (which BLM wholly ignored), suddenly, the conversation seems to pivot to there being too many guns in society. However, the group with the most significant problem managing their guns is blacks. As gun ownership is far higher among whites than blacks, and violent crime is far higher among blacks than whites — it impossible to say that the issue is simply the guns. Observe that when police often kill violent criminals, the police are to blame. However, when blacks kill other blacks, suddenly the perpetrator is forgiven, and the gun or inanimate object is blamed.

And Other Crimes

It is not only murders that massively increased, but also other types of crime. The BLM policies also caused many more property crimes and more people to be raped.

Homicides in Atlanta are on track to beat last year’s 30-year high of 158 murders while rapes are up 236% after a soft-on-crime mayor and pandemic lockdowns sent crime in the city spiraling.

Atlanta Police Department statistics revealed on Friday, that homicides are up 43 percent for 2022 compared to the same period, from January 1 to February 12, in 2021.

Burglaries are also up 18 percent from last year, with 229 reported as of February 12 compared to 191 at the same time in 2021, and shoplifting cases are up 4 percent, with 164 cases thus far in 2022 compared to 157 last year. – American Renaissance

What is the Ferguson Effect?

This effect has gone through different names in the past, and it proceeds with what happened after the BLM protests and changes in policy in response to BLM and similar groups. However, this is when the black activists call for reduced policing combined with riots/protests, etc… and then as the police back off, the overall crime rate increases. One can look at the 2021 statistics as this effect but across many different cities.

This is explained in the following quotation.

That political message is accompanied by increasing tension on the street, inflamed by the persistent allegation that racist officers are the biggest threat facing young black males today. A garden-variety Black Lives Matter march that I attended last November on Fifth Avenue in New York featured “F–––the Police,” “Murderer Cops” and “Racism Is the Disease, Revolution Is the Cure” T-shirts as well as “Stop Police Terror” signs.

Officers working in urban areas are now routinely surrounded by angry crowds when they question a suspect or make an arrest. “In my 19 years in law enforcement, I haven’t seen this kind of hatred towards the police,” a Chicago cop who works on the South Side told me in May. “People want to fight you. ‘F––– the police. We don’t have to listen,’ they say.” A police officer in Los Angeles’s Newton Division reports: “Our officers are getting surrounded, cursed and jeered at every time they put handcuffs on someone.”

Officers continue to rush to crime scenes after someone has already been victimized, sometimes getting shot at in the process. But in that large area of discretionary policing that aims to prevent crime before it occurs — getting out of a squad car at 1 a.m., for example, to question someone who appears to have a gun or may be casing a target — many officers are deciding to drive on by rather than risk a volatile, potentially career-ending confrontation that they are under no obligation to instigate.

An officer in South Central Los Angeles described the views of his fellow cops: “Guys and gals in coffee shops are saying to each other: ‘If you get out of your car, you’re crazy, unless there’s a radio call.’ ” – Manhattan Institute

The fact that this is on MSNBC means it is false. However, blacks and Democrat-aligned media state that the Ferguson Effect does not exist. 

This first part of this video has nothing to do with the question of the Ferguson Effect. Observe that the focus is on the person who was killed, who would fall into the category of 18 blacks who are killed every year by police who are unarmed. It leaves out the far higher number of black children killed by blacks. At the 2:07 mark, it refers to a study that calls into question the Ferguson Effect. This is a report that covers 2014. However, as is already covered, violent crime spiked dramatically in 2021. Then the video finishes off with an unwarranted tasering. Which is not related to the question.

The Ferguson Effect is not simply based on one city, it is a nationwide issue.

Conclusion

After all the posturing and marching of BLM and similar groups, the net effect appears to be that the number of blacks killed or “black lives lost” increased. Furthermore, defunding the police and generally increasing black lawlessness will put several cities into a long-term decline. Therefore, we saw the impact of BLM on policy in 2021 — which none of the Democrat-leaning media entities will point out. However, the longer-term negative consequences are still to come.