NYT: Blame Pandemic for Huge Increase in Shootings This Year
12/31/2020
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Earlier: Murders Up 28.3% This Year Across 223 Cities

The end-of-the-year murder count articles are starting to come out, so the New York Times is providing leadership in how to spin away the fact that the Racial Reckoning has gotten thousands of incremental Americans murdered since the death of George Floyd on Memorial Day: blame it on Covid. What a crazy year it’s been! From the NYT news section:

Violent Year in New York and Across U.S. as Pandemic Fuels Crime Spike

A time without precedent saw huge increases in homicides and shootings in the city as some other types of crime plummeted.

By Ali Watkins
Dec. 29, 2020

The first disaster in a year of perpetual crises hit the New York Police Department in March, when the virus tore through the force, killing dozens and sickening entire detective squads.

Soon, the courts ground to a halt. By June, hundreds of officers were reassigned to cover mass protests against police brutality and racism, where police and protesters sometimes clashed violently. By August, gun violence was surging. And as December drew to a close, New York’s 447 homicides made 2020 the city’s bloodiest year in nearly a decade.

The hobbled criminal justice system strained to contain the rise in violent crime driven by the pandemic’s society-wide upheaval.

“I can’t imagine a darker period,” Police Commissioner Dermot F. Shea said in a year-end briefing with reporters on Tuesday, citing the confluence of the pandemic and the protests.

The year’s crime numbers give shape to 2020’s tumult: Transit crime and grand larceny, often the stealing of laptops or iPhones of straphangers, plummeted as trains emptied out. But burglaries and car thefts spiked in a hollowed-out city. And bodegas, neighborhood staples during the throes of the pandemic, saw an increase in robberies and shootings.

By summer, the frustrations of shutdowns and economic collapse had burst onto the streets. Shootings had doubled, and most of them were concentrated in the areas hardest hit by the coronavirus and unemployment.

Up thru May 24, about ten weeks after lockdowns started in NYC, there were 130 murders, up from 111 in the same period in 2019, a 17% growth rate. And there had been 340 shooting victims thru May 24 versus 278 in 2019: an increase of 22%.

From Memorial Day 2020 through December 20, in contrast, there have been 307 murders versus 203 in the same period in 2019, a rise of 51%. And there have been 1484 shootings this year compared to 618 in 2019, an increase of 140%.

So, I’d say that while NYC got off to a worrisome start in 2020, most of the increase in shootings in NYC traces to the Racial Reckoning declared after the Memorial Day death of George Floyd.

The increase in violence resembles trends in many big U.S. cities, where shootings and homicides have risen even as the pandemic has driven down other crimes.

From the New York Post opinion section,

Charged with murder, stabbing? In NYC, you’re free to go

By Seth Barron December 29, 2020

Seth Barron is associate editor of City Journal. Twitter: @SethBarronNYC

Criminal-justice “reform” in New York has turned our courts into a merry-go-round, with violent offenders free to jump off at will.

The latest outrage took place in The Bronx, where 16-year-old Jordon Benjamin allegedly stabbed Amya Hicks in mid-December. … He only spent a few hours in a holding cell before being released on his recognizance, without having to post bail.

It’s bad enough that an alleged knife-wielding thug who slashes neighborhood women got to gallivant out of jail. But the story becomes downright enraging when we learn that Benjamin was already facing manslaughter charges — and the same judge let him out twice.

On Christmas Eve 2019, young Benjamin and some of his mates allegedly took time out from their holiday festivities to assault Juan Fresnada, a 60-year-old Bronx man. They stomped on him and brained him with a garbage can. Fresnada died, and Benjamin and his crew got away with $1. …

Benjamin was originally held in a youth correctional facility until he was released in March because of the pandemic. This was part of a massive drawdown in the city’s jail population, which dovetailed with the push to free as many inmates as possible in expectation of closing Rikers Island.

“The number of New Yorkers held in NYC jails has plummeted, shrinking by 27 percent in 10 weeks, a steeper population decline than in all of last year,” boasted the mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice in May. “The jail population is at a number not seen since 1946.”

This would be fantastic news — if the decline in the inmate population was a function of a lower crime rate. But when it’s artificially imposed, it’s hardly cause for celebration. And while it may make sense to let certain nonviolent, older prisoners out of jail for health concerns, there is no evidence that teenagers like Benjamin, being held at juvenile correction facilities, are especially vulnerable to COVID-19.

The extent to which the mass ­release of juvenile prisoners in March was a political decision, and not driven by “the science,” can be seen by the fact that as violence spiked throughout the spring, the city hesitated to release teenagers arrested for serious crimes. After balancing their low medical vulnerability against public-safety concerns, the number of detained youth rebounded to pre-pandemic levels by May. …

[Comment at Unz.com]

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