KC Expert: STL Confronts Crime Spike One Year After Ferguson Racial Uprising Riots

TKC NOTE: An important perspective on crime in STL in the aftermath of an EPIC racial uprising . . . A respected Kansas City prof. contends that the episode made life even harder for people in Missouri neighborhoods. You decide:

Dr. Ernest Evans: Crime Disaster in Black Neighborhoods of Saint Louis

On August 9, 2014 Michael Brown, a black teenager, was shot and killed by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. Brown's tragic death touched off protests around the nation--while the police officer responsible for his death was not charged with any wrong-doing by either local or federal authorities the police chief of Ferguson resigned after the Department of Justice issued a report criticizing his department for misconduct towards minorities.

Now that nearly a year has passed since Brown's death it is appropriate to assess the impact that this incident, and the "Black Lives Matter" movement that grew out of this incident, both locally and nationally. I am in the process of writing up an article on the national impact of this tragedy, what I would like to do in this memo is assess its impact in the largest city in the Ferguson area, the city of Saint Louis.

Years ago I saw an old Jimmy Stewart film entitled "Dark Mountain." It told the story of a Jewish family in Germany after the Nazi takeover. The father of the family teaches biology at a university, and shortly after Hitler comes to power he is asked if the blood of a Jew is different from the blood of an Aryan. He says there is no difference--the students start walking out of class, and the professor exclaims: "Boys, you cannot let politics overrule science."

That statement is worth remembering today as we assess our crime situation. I am going to say some things here that many people will find outrageous and even offensive--but I firmly believe that they are true and that we cannot allow political correctness to stifle the truth.

The past twelve months have been a crime disaster in the black neighborhoods of Saint Louis. From August 1, 2014--July 29, 2015 there have been 201 homicides in Saint Louis. In Calender year 2014 there were 159 homicides in Saint Louis; in 2013 there were 120 homicides, in 2012 there were 113 homicides, and in 2011 there were 115 homicides. And, all of this homicide surge has been accounted for by an increase in black victims: In Jan. 1, 2014--July 31, 2014 there were 70 homicides in Saint Louis--62 black and 8 other races. In Jan. 1, 2015--July 29, 2015 there have been 111 homicides in Saint Louis--103 black and 8 other races.

This large homicide surge in the black neighborhoods of Saint Louis is not surprising in light of the experiences of other areas with high profile cases of alleged police racism. If you look at the major surge of violence in NYC's black neighborhoods in 1989-1993 in the aftermath of the ajudication of the Tawana Brawley case in 1987-1989, the large surge of violence in heavily black Prince George's County, Maryland in the aftermath of the Stephanie Mohr case in 2001, the surge in violence in the black neighborhoods in Cincinnati after several nights of rioting in May 2001 in response to a white cop killing a black teenager, and the surge in violence in the black neighborhoods of KCMO in the aftermath of the ajudication of the Sofia Salva case in 2007-2008 the same pattern as is present today in Saint Louis is also visible.

Police officers are required to do, on a daily basis, a most politically incorrect thing: Use force against black suspects. And, real takedowns of suspects are not like on cop shows on TV--no matter how justified, they look terrible on camera. Given that painful and ugly reality, if police officers are going to have the morale and motivation to do their jobs in black neighborhoods they must be assured of two things: They will get due process, and they wiil get some degree of fair media coverage.

Neither factor was present in Ferguson: The case was ajudicated in an environment of open threats of race riots if the officer was not indicted and convicted--and there were indeed riots when the Grand Jury failed to indict. As for the local and national media, most of the journalists reporting on the story acted like they were competing for "The Atlanta Race Riot of 1906 Award for Criminally Irresponsible Behavior by a Journalist During a Time of Crisis."

So, as in the other cases noted above, a process of "de-policing" has taken place in Saint Louis in the past twelve months: Out of sheer self-survival the local cops have abandoned their jobs in the black neighborhoods of the city. Nature abhors a vacume--so the gangs and criminal elements have moved in and the bloodbath began.

So, to borrow a phrase from V I Lenin: "What is to be done?" There is one way, and one way only, to stop this crime disaster in the black neighborhoods of Saint Louis: The city's politicians and journalists must give commitments to the local cops that if accused of racist misconduct they will get due process and some degree of fair media coverage.

In conclusion, let me stress that I am not calling for some sort of "Dirty Harry" justice system where cops are above the law. Everybody has to be accountable to our legal system. But our Constitution guarantees everyone due process, and as a third-generation participant in the civil rights movement let me say that it is just as wrong in 2015 to deny due prcess to a white cop accused of racism as it was in 1915 to deny due process to a black man accused of raping a white woman.
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