FBI Director Reiterates Link Between Vilifying Police and Spike in Violent Crime

Somebody had to say it.

On Monday, FBI director James Comey reiterated that the rise of violent crime in certain cities may be a result of less aggressive policing due to increased scrutiny of officers in the wake of recent high-profile police killings of black men.

Repeating remarks he made last week, Comey said at the annual convention of the International Association of Chiefs of Police in Chicago that police and communities of color are “arcing apart” with every incident that involves police misconduct or an attack on law enforcement.

He said this growing separation can be seen in many different ways, one of which is through the lens of social media.

“I actually see an example and demonstration of that arcing through hashtags: the hashtag Black Lives Matter and the hashtag Police Lives Matter,” he said. “Of course, each of those hashtags and what they represent adds a voice to an important conversation, but each time someone interprets hashtag Black Lives Matter as anti-law enforcement, one line moves away and each time someone interprets hashtag Police Lives Matter as anti-black, the other line moves away.”

Comey continued:

“And just as those lines are arcing away, and maybe, just maybe, because those lines are arcing away from each other, we have a crisis of violent crime in some of our major cities in this country, and in those cities in some of our most vulnerable neighborhoods.”

He is being very careful with his words, obviously, but this really is a connect-the-dots with only two dots. While violent crime is trending downward in most of America it is rising in many big cities, most notably the adopted hometown of the current chief executive of the United States. It’s all gotten worse in the last year. Give that information, along with a quick mention of Ferguson and #BlackLivesMatter to any third grader and he’ll figure out the cause.

It isn’t necessary to speculate though, as some officers have already admitted that this is the problem.

It cannot be repeated enough that the Democratic candidates for president are falling all over themselves to appease the #BlackLivesMatter activists, which means that the people who would lead the free world are practically advocating lawlessness.

So Hillary should be right at home.