F.B.I. Chief Links Scrutiny of Police With Rise in Violent Crime...
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http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/24/us/politics/fbi-chief-links-scrutiny-of-police-with-rise-in-violent-crime.html?_r=0
CHICAGO — The F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, said on Friday that the additional scrutiny and criticism of police officers in the wake of highly publicized episodes of police brutality may have led to an increase in violent crime in some cities as officers have become less aggressive.
With his remarks, Mr. Comey lent the prestige of the F.B.I., the nation’s most prominent law enforcement agency, to a theory that is far from settled: that the increased attention on the police has made officers less aggressive and emboldened criminals. But he acknowledged that there is so far no data to back up his assertion and that it may be just one of many factors that are contributing to the rise in crime, like cheaper drugs and an increase in criminals who are being released from prison.
“I don’t know whether that explains it entirely, but I do have a strong sense that some part of the explanation is a chill wind that has blown through American law enforcement over the last year,” Mr. Comey said in a speech at the University of Chicago Law School.
Mr. Comey’s remarks caught officials by surprise at the Justice Department, where his views are not shared at the top levels. Holding the police accountable for civil rights violations has been a top priority at the department in recent years, and some senior officials do not believe that scrutiny of police officers has led to an increase in crime. While the department had no immediate comment on Friday, several officials privately fumed at Mr. Comey’s suggestion.
Among the nation’s law enforcement officials, there is sharp disagreement over whether there is any credence to the so-called Ferguson effect, which refers to the protests that erupted in the summer of 2014 in Ferguson, Mo., over a police shooting.
In Oakland, Calif., for example, homicides are on the rise after two years of decline. But shootings are down, and the overall crime rate is about the same, said Oakland’s police chief, Sean Whent. “Our officers are very, very sensitive to the climate right now, but I haven’t seen any evidence to say our officers aren’t doing their jobs,” Chief Whent said.
In Washington, homicides are also up, but violent crime and crime over all are down, said Lt. Sean Conboy, a police spokesman. “Trying to correlate it to a Ferguson effect, I don’t believe is appropriate,” Lieutenant Conboy said.
After civil rights leaders and the Justice Department accused the Seattle Police Department of discriminatory policing and excessive force, the number of officer-instigated stops declined and crime ticked upward, said Kathleen O’Toole, the police chief.
Chief O’Toole said it was up to police leaders to insist on reversing that trend. The critiques made the department better, she said. Crime is down this year, and her city has hosted police officials from places such as Baltimore wanting to understand why.
“There’s never been as much scrutiny on police officers as there is now,” Chief O’Toole said. “We should embrace it.”
But Mr. Comey said that he had been told by many police leaders that officers who would normally stop to question suspicious people are opting to stay in their patrol cars for fear of having their encounters become worldwide video sensations. That hesitancy has led to missed opportunities to apprehend suspects, he said, and has decreased the police presence on the streets of the country’s most violent cities.
“I’ve been told by a senior police leader who urged his force to remember that their political leadership has no tolerance for a viral video,” Mr. Comey said, adding that many leaders and officers whom he had spoken to said they were afraid to address the issue publicly.
“Lives are saved when those potential killers are confronted by a police officer, a strong police presence and actual, honest-to-goodness, up-close ‘What are you guys doing on this corner at 1 o’clock in the morning’ policing,” Mr. Comey said. “We need to be careful it doesn’t drift away from us in the age of viral videos, or there will be profound consequences.”
But investigations by the Justice Department have given weight to the loudest criticisms of police behavior in Ferguson and elsewhere. Those inquiries have found that many officers unfairly singled out African-Americans for stops and arrests, and too often used force that was unjustified. Videos of deadly encounters with the police in cities such as Cleveland, New York and North Charleston, S.C., have fueled that criticism.
More than his predecessors, Mr. Comey has used his position as one of the nation’s top law enforcement officials to bring attention to issues that state and local police departments are confronting. It is not clear what impact he will be able to have on the issue. He said that the remedies to the problem were not clear, and that law enforcement authorities needed to have better data about crime and shootings involving police officers.
Mr. Comey, who was in Chicago for the annual conference of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, plans to address the issue with law enforcement leaders.
In February, Mr. Comey delivered an unusually candid speech at Georgetown University about the difficult relationship between the police and African-Americans. Some officers, he said, scrutinize minorities more closely using a mental shortcut that “becomes almost irresistible and maybe even rational by some lights” because black men are arrested at much higher rates than white men.
Mr. Comey said that without more reliable data, the task of identifying trends and remedies to fix them is far more challenging. He said state and local law enforcement officials were increasingly open to providing the F.B.I. with better data so it can more accurately chart trends.
“ ‘Data’ is a dry word, but we need better data,” Mr. Comey said. “And people tend to tune out when you start to talk about it, but it’s important, because it gives us the full picture of what’s happening.”
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http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-fbi-director-james-comey-met-20151021-story.htmlGap between minorities and police widening, FBI boss says in Chicago
The gap between communities of color and the police who are assigned to protect them has widened in recent years, FBI Director James Comey said Friday in Chicago.
And the only way to restore the trust between African-Americans and other racial minorities and the police is to begin holding frank, open conversations about race, crime and the justice system as well as to address the breakdown in that relationship, he said.
"One of the hardest things to talk about in America is race," Comey said. "We have to get past that and talk ... and listen."
"I imagine two lines: One line is law enforcement, the other line is the communities that we serve and protect, especially communities of color," he said. "What I see is those two lines arcing away from each other, at an increasing rate."
Comey, in town for the Conference of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, spoke to law students, faculty, staff and some police officers at the University of Chicago Law School, which he graduated from in 1985.
Comey's remarks on the tense relationship between blacks and the police comes at a time of increased scrutiny of the use of force by police, particularly after a number of high-profile cases across the country in which unarmed blacks were killed.
Comey said he has noticed that violent crime in black communities has increased this year at the same time that trust in law enforcement has decreased. He said he has spoken to police leaders across the country who have offered various theories for the rise: increase in heroin use, violent offenders getting out of prison, access to weapons.
But he has his own theory.
"Maybe something in policing has changed," Comey said. "In today's YouTube world, are officers reluctant to get out of their cars and do the work that controls violent crime? Are officers answering 911 calls but avoiding the informal contact that keeps bad guys from standing around, especially with guns?"
Comey, who comes from a law enforcement family, said he has spoken to police officers who feel "under siege" and say it's affecting their work.
His remarks echoed Mayor Rahm Emanuel's recent comment blaming rising violence in Chicago and elsewhere on police officers becoming "fetal" out of concern that their actions would get them in trouble.
Comey pushed back against activists who blame the drug policies of the 1990s for massively incarcerating black males. He also took to task the idea that black men "disappeared" from their communities by being imprisoned.
Instead, he said, police aggressively made arrests and prosecutors like him came down hard on criminals in order to return drug infested African-American communities back to healthy neighborhoods.
"That work added up to a very large number of people in jail, especially young men of color," he said. "But then there were a very large number of young men of color involved in criminal activity in America's cities and in America's most desperate neighborhoods."
At the same time, Comey said part of the conversation about race and police has to address the disparities. And the problem of drug addiction has to be addressed if communities are ever to change.
"Yes, it is true that young men of color have long been dramatically overrepresented among both homicide victims and killers," he said. "But it is also true that white people buy and use most of the drugs in this country — and the white peoples' demand for drugs drives the drug trade that is destroying black neighborhoods. It's a problem our society simply must not drive around."
Comey, who has led the FBI for more than two years, told students that when he attended the University of Chicago, located in the Hyde Park neighborhood, he regarded the South Side as his community. -
http://youtu.be/FZDDSK_yBMU
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I dont believe it more violent crimes happening.
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I wonder if they include police killings as part of the rise in violent crime?
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I keep telling folks, it starts at the Academy. That's the source. Once they do a much better.....
You know what? Waste of time.....this is another cracka proving that they are fine with killing ? . -
We really need to get off this ? of 'this or that', everything is nearly always overdetermined; having not one but multiple reasons for it's happening, which then makes it an event not a happened but whatever.
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Police are upset because they NOW could potentially be held accountable for shooting an unarmed suspect in the back multiple times....
....... While he's fleeing.
SMH @ these cry-babies. -
Cops think the be all end all of citizen behavior
