I've maintained that I don't believe BLM's leadership has the best interests of its masses in mind. I support the overall message, just think the leadership is suspect. to wit:
https://www.foxnews.com/us/black-americans-paid-enormous-price-for-defund-the-police-movement Massive increase in Black Americans murdered was result of defund police movement: experts Black Americans were disproportionately affected by the skyrocketing murders of 2020 By Emma Colton | Fox News FBI's 2020 crime report shows record increase: report Project 21 co-chair Horace Cooper and former Hennepin County Sheriff Rich Stanek join 'Fox News @ Night' to discuss the rise in violent crime across the U.S. Support of Black Lives Matter and calls to defund the police reverberated across America in 2020 following the death of George Floyd, igniting social justice protests and riots at a time when the coronavirus and lockdowns upended society in unprecedented ways. What was left in 2020's wake was a massive increase in the number of murders, dealing a disproportionate blow to Black Americans. "Certainly, the protests and riots mid-2020 after the death of George Floyd followed a pattern of spiking violence that we've seen following past viral police incidents, such as the deaths of Michael Brown and Freddie Gray. This pattern has been termed the ‘Ferguson Effect’: police pull back while violent crime spikes precipitously," Hannah Meyers, director of the policing and public safety initiative at the Manhattan Institute, told Fox News Digital. KENOSHA, WI - AUGUST 24: People watch a the American flag flies over a burning building during a riot as demonstrators protest the police shooting of Jacob Blake on Monday, August 24, 2020 in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Blake was shot in the back multiple times by police officers responding to a domestic dispute call yesterday. (Photo by Joshua Lott for The Washington Post via Getty Images) Murders across the board spiked by nearly 30% in 2020 compared to the year prior, according to FBI data, marking the largest single-year increase in killings since the agency began tracking the crimes. Among Black Americans, the number of deaths spiked by more than 32% compared to 2019. FBI DATA SHOWS LARGE INCREASE IN MURDERS IN 2020 NATIONWIDE In 2019, at least 7,484 Black Americans were murdered. That number shot up to at least 9,941 murdersin 2020, meaning there was an increase of 2,457 Black Americans murdered over the previous year. The number of Black murders was also far higher than White murders in 2020. The FBI data shows there 7,043 White people murdered that year, meaning 2,898 more Black people were killed compared to Whites. Between 2010 and 2019, there was an average of 5,954 White murders, which is roughly 16% lower than the 10-year average of Black murders. During that same time period, an average of 6,927 Black Americans were murdered each year, meaning Black murders shot up by 43% in 2020 compared to the previous 10-year average. There was a roughly 21% increase in White murders in 2020 compared to 2019. The figures are more staggering considering White Americans make up 76% of the population compared to Black Americans representing only 13%, according to Census data. Murders in the 2010s first broke the 7,000 murder benchmark in 2015 after the high-profile deaths of Freddie Gray that same year and Michael Brown in 2014, jumping by nearly a thousand in one year. Brown was fatally shot by a Ferguson, Missouri, police officer and Gray died after he sustained injuries in the back of a Baltimore police van. Their deaths sparked protests and riots similar to the ones following Floyd’s death. Prior to Brown's death, Black murders had fallen the previous four years. Fox News Digital reviewed murder data from 2014 and 2015 and found a spike of 15% in year over year data. At least 7,000 Black Americans were killed each year thereafter without ever exceeding the 8,000 mark. St. Louis Police Chief Sam Dotson coined the increase the Ferguson effect in November 2014. The theory gained widespread attention in 2016 after the Manhattan Institute’s Heather Mac Donald wrote an opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal arguing the effect is one "where the Black Lives Matter narrative about racist, homicidal cops has produced virulent hostility in the streets." The summer of 2020 was marked by swaths of America pledging support for the Black Lives Matter movement and defunding the police. Many cities answered supporters’ calls by removing portions of police funding, such as Portland and New York City. The social justice movement even trickled down to small cities and spread to nearly every facet of America, stretching from major corporations, celebrities and the sports world demanding change. CHICAGO MURDERS CONTINUE TO SKYROCKET AS POLICE BRASS ADMIT 'IT'S JUST BEEN A REALLY CHALLENGING YEAR' 2020’s "violent-crime increase—call it Ferguson Effect 2.0 or the Minneapolis Effect— has come on with a speed and magnitude that make Ferguson 1.0 seem tranquil," Mac Donald wrote during the crime spike that year. "George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police in late May was justly condemned — but the event has now spurred an outpouring of contempt against the pillars of law and order that has no precedent in American history." Mac Donald told Fox News Digital this month that the Black Lives Matter and the defund the police movements contributed to the crime spike in 2020 and had nothing to do with the coronavirus and lockdowns. The spike "began months after lockdowns beginning only after riots," noting the "spike was not at all related to COVID." The FBI crime data in 2020 came as the FBI switched to a new recording method, the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS), amid a push to change how law enforcement agencies provide crime figures and record details on every single crime incident. NYC REFORMS AIMED AT TINKERING WITH RACIAL MAKEUP OF CRIMINALS CREATED MORE BLACK VICTIMS: EXPERT Murders and nonnegligent manslaughter offenses were already on the rise during the first half of 2020, with FBI data showing a 14.8% increase across the board from January to June. Murders began to rise in the late winter of 2020 which is typical of that time of year, with the spike appearing to begin in April with 1,261 murders – the month prior to George Floyd's death. However, April's numbers were not far off track with April's numbers in previous years. May recorded 1,499 murders – which compared to previous Mays is high – before reaching its peak of 1,772 in July, far above July peaks in the previous six years, according to the New York Times citing FBI data. Murders dipped in the month of September to 1,611 before shooting back up to 1,740 in October. Fox News Digital reached out to the FBI for the data set obtained by the Times to take a closer look, but was told they "do not have the Supplementary Homicide Report File List available at this time." Progressive leaders also ushered in criminal justice reforms theoretically intended to rectify the imbalance of Black Americans who are arrested, convicted and incarcerated in response to the social justice uprisings demanding change. But in practice, in cities like New York, these reforms backfired, resulting in a spike in crime, experts say. "In NY, statewide changes to the bail laws that went into effect in 2020 prevented judges from holding a huge range of defendants in jail pre-trial and effectively prevented judges from considering dangerousness in the decision to set bail. The rate of felony re-offense among defendants out of jail pre-trial who would not have been out of jail prior to "bail reform" has been estimated at 43%. That is a significant number," Meyers told Fox News Digital in an email. Meyers and Jim Quinn, a former executive district attorney in the Queens district attorney’s office, published an essay in the New York Times this year arguing that by "aiming for racial equity in criminal justice rather than focusing solely on deterring and responding to crime, policymakers seem to have neglected the foundational purpose of law and order." "What has followed — a sharp rise in victims of crime, who remain disproportionately Black, and a slight increase in the percentage of Rikers Island inmates who are Black — is a racial imbalance of a more troubling kind," the authors wrote in the article. Manhattan Institute senior fellow Rafael Mangual delivered testimony in front of the Senate last year and noted that studies have found that more policing leads to less crime, benefiting communities of color and upping life expectancies. "In laymen’s terms, what those studies bear out is that, generally speaking, more police means less crime. And just as people of color—particularly Black men—are disproportionately impacted by crime increases, they disproportionately benefit from crime declines," he said. He noted that a study on the national decline in homicides between 1991 and 2014 led to increases in life expectancy of 0.14 years for White males, and shot up to a year for Black men. Meyers said that the coronavirus likely aggravated the effects of the Ferguson effect in 2020, explaining that police forces were "diminished" with officers calling out sick, and young men, who are the "most likely to be involved in gun violence," were left with time on their hands when schools closed businesses shuttered. While courts were closed due to the pandemic, "potentially leaving more offenders on the street for longer periods of time," Meyers said. "But were there more homicides in 2020 due to Covid-related hardships such as the need for food? Anecdotally, I don't know of any such murders and I'm skeptical that this was a significant contributor to the enormous surge," Meyers added.
Any org interested in supporting black lives should be more engaged in preventing killings of blacks by blacks. If the leaders would set up shop in the hardest hit areas and tried to have an impact, they could.
OPINION: Have Portland police deserved a budget increase? Jake Dockter: 'Why invest in a failing bureau that has shown ... lack of care or ability to contribute to our thriving?' In the coming months Portland will be reviewing Mayor Wheeler's police budget. Wheeler is asking for more cops and more money while others demand deeper cuts than the city made in 2020. My hope, one day, is that the city thrives and people live their lives to the fullest. As an abolitionist, I believe this can only be achieved with the reduction of harm, growth of community dreams and opportunities, and an honest hard look at what we spend our money on. Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty has always reminded us that budgets are moral documents. To be a moral city caring for all our people, we must ask some deep questions about where our money is invested. Commissioner Hardesty's call is not a new one but seems to have been forgotten by many of our leaders (or purposefully overlooked by dark money groups like People for Portland). Jo Ann is part of a long tradition of civil rights icon leaders and echoes Ella Baker, who raised a similar call in 1968. I think we need to hear it again: "Those of us who are not ready for the burning will go down to our city halls, go down to our mayors and to our governors, and even to our federal government and question why so much artillery is being bought and stacked and stocked to deal with people who are fighting against an oppressive or a repressive system that they have become victim to. The voice of those who believe that life is more sacred than property must be heard now, if at no other time." Portland, are our budgets helping all of our community thrive? Is the budget allocated to the Portland Police Bureau improving our community? Do we believe that life is more sacred than property? Over the past decade, and until dissolved in 2020, the Portland Police worked with a budget that increased every year but their clearance rate (or cases closed or solved) for gun violence crime decreased. According to Portland Police data, the Gun Violence Reduction Taskforce (GVRT) cleared only 20% of incidents in 2019, their final year, and had an average clearance of 24.1% from 2012 to 2019. PPB's own dismal clearance rates for rape illustrates an increased budget does not ensure successful results nor increased safety. Reviewing the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting data shows that from 2016 to 2019 PPB only cleared an average of 11% of rape cases; 89% of those attacks went unsolved. That is 20 points below the national average for those same years. Additionally, even with growing funding PPB had left thousands of rape kits untested until forced to process them by pressure from the Oregon legislature. Again, FBI data (provided by PPB) shows that in 2019, PPB cleared only 41% of murders, 29% of robberies, 8% of thefts, 15% of burglaries and 7% of auto thefts. This was with a budget that increased from $226.81 million in 2018 to $238.19 million in 2019. Homicide offenses rose 78% while PPB's budget rose over 50 million. If more funding results in safer communities, where do we see it? As we scrutinize the budget allocations and listen to Ted Wheeler, Mingus Mapps and the Portland Police Association and other self-interested groups demand more money for police, ask why? Ask them, "what is the point?" Ask to see the receipts. Would you invest in a company that only produced 11% of the products you paid for? Why invest in a failing bureau that has shown an historic lack of care or ability to contribute to our thriving? We can and should listen to Commissioner Hardesty, Ella Baker, Candace Avalos, Sandy Chung, Kat Mahoney, Nkenge Harmon Johnson, the late Sylvia Dollarson, and countless others who are calling for and building community-based ideas and solutions. Invest in ideas and solutions that help the city thrive and allow us all to live our lives to the fullest. (Writer's note: Data used in this piece was compiled from PPB's own data available at Portlandoregon.gov, the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Dashboards, and PPB budget data. https://pamplinmedia.com/pt/10-opin...ve-portland-police-deserved-a-budget-increase
Thanks for posting this. Everyone needs to see this. Unfortunately many will immediately dismiss it as it doesn't fit their beliefs. Case in point...
Ok. I'll say this. If funds are being misappropriated, that is something that needs to be dealt with. The lack of transparency and the use of a shell corporation, if true, to buy a mansion is conspicuous and fishy. The report above by Fox though is dubious and lacks context. First, Patrisse Cullors bought some other houses with her own money, that she got through book deals, and deals with warner brothers and Youtube among other ventures. The $6 million mansion appears to have been bought by BLM as a safehouse and campus for recipients of the Black Joy Creators Fellowship. It is a space dedicated to Black artists for the creation of content focusing on abolition, social justice, and other forms of activism. It has not been used as a personal abode. It was bought to allow black artists a space outside of oppression according to BLM. The organization was planning to reveal its purchase of the property when it filed it's taxes next month. Cullors is no longer a leader with BLM. She stepped down last year. The video of her in the Fox news clip is spliced and doesn't speak to the whole conversation of the interview she was giving. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/04/black-lives-matter-6-million-dollar-house.html https://amp.usatoday.com/amp/7241450002 https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/patrisse-cullors-topanga-house/
If the organization misused funds, that's a legit story. Dragging Ms Cullors' personal and perfectly legal finances into it - not so much. If she was on the political right, would Fox consider her personal business dealings fair game? I think we all know the answer to that.
One kind of bizarre thing on the vid was why would they pay 2m+ over asking? It's hard to conceive a bidding war would go that high. Dunno, though, it is California after all.
It's a fair question, but as you say the real estate market in Cali is nuts right now. Not just Cali either. My childhood home in NEP had the beautiful back yard hacked off and is now occupied by one of those weird narrow houses like you would see in SF. I'm surprised my mother's ghost hasn't gone full poltergeist and made the place uninhabitable!
These used to be all the rage in Nashville. I think there's a current moratorium, though. Time for a Sheryl Crow moment! https://nestinginnashville.com/what-is-an-hpr/
