The Minneapolis Effect, In Numbers

We’ve seen it over and over: when activists make war on the police, and politicians sell them down the river, police officers respond as one would expect. They pull back. They respond to 911 calls but do as little active policing as possible. Inevitably, that is happening in Minneapolis. The Free Beacon has the numbers:

Official data released by the [Minneapolis Police Department] show that cumulative stops fell 36 percent in the week after George Floyd’s death at the hands of three officers, sparking nationwide protests. That trend has persisted—-over the week between July 6 and July 12, MPD officers made just 193 stops, down 77 percent from the same week in 2019.

Stops involving searches of people or their vehicles have also plummeted. MPD conducted just 20 over the week of July 12, and 11 the week before—87 and 90 percent declines, respectively, from the preceding year.

Such stops and searches are thought to play a critical, albeit controversial, role in keeping criminals and deadly firearms off the street….

This slackening of day-to-day enforcement, an MPD press officer told the Washington Free Beacon, represents a department stretched to its limits by an unprecedented spate of shootings in the weeks since Floyd’s death. But it may also reflect police discomfort with day-to-day interactions in a city that is now ground zero for the police defunding movement.

Do you think? The activists’ anti-police hysteria is exacting a terrible price from residents of Minneapolis, in the form of reduced public safety.

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