Former officer/current prisoner Derek Chauvin decided to personify endemic police racism by pressing his knee to the neck of an unarmed black man for nearly ten minutes. This display of power continued for three minutes after another officer told Officer Chauvin he could no longer detect a pulse.
This act saw Officer Derek Chauvin join the very short list of law enforcement officers convicted of murder. Before that verdict arrived, Minneapolis exploded. Shortly thereafter, so did the rest of the country.
Minneapolis PD officers responded as cops almost always do when a “bad apple” further turns public sentiment against them: they simply refused to do their job. Officers decided that if people didn’t love the police, they weren’t going to avail themselves of the benefits (whatever they are) of an organized police force. Of course, most officers were unwilling to give up their incomes in exchange for abdicating their responsibilities. They expected to get paid for doing nothing.
Others saw the writing on the likely burning wall: casual abuse of citizens and their rights was no longer being tolerated to the extent it had been previous to Officer Chauvin’s murder of George Floyd. They decided to exit the police business altogether, rather than deal with any minimal increases in transparency and accountability.
These officers assumed the city would bend to their will in order to maintain the status quo, assuming legislators would rather retain bad cops than deal with chronic understaffing. Things went the other way, though. The PD remained under the microscope and further limits were placed on police and policing.
But following the murder of George Floyd, a unified message was sent out by police officials, police union reps, and the bootlicking contingent of the Minnesota/Minneapolis legislatures: “Fewer cops means more crime, folks. That’s just simple math.”
And, for a relatively brief moment, that simple math held. Crime did go up while the city was still dealing with 24/7 protests and an observable spike in disrespect for police officers and everything they stand for.
But that assertion has since been proven false. Reports flowing in over the last couple of years show cops aren’t all that essential to lowering crime rates. In April of this year, it was reported that crime rate decreases first noted in 2022 weren’t an anomaly.
According to MPD data, carjackings are down 46% year-to-date, robbery has dropped 34%, gunshot wound victims declined nearly 38% and assaults are down 7%.
The city’s mayor, Jacob Frey, credited this drop to a new task force and a renewed focus on subjecting repeat offenders to harsher sentences. Maybe. Maybe not. But it definitely wasn’t related to an increase in officers on patrol, contrary to the predictions of the self-interest groups listed above.
Things had only improved by early September:
The city has recorded 20 fewer homicides than at this time last year, on pace for a 33% decline.
Other metrics show similar positive trends, according to city data analyzed by the Star Tribune: 9% fewer aggravated assaults, 26% fewer robberies, 30% fewer gunfire reports, 33% fewer shootings victims and 52% fewer carjackings.
Violent crime — murder, aggravated assault, rape and robbery — is down 12% overall from last year to its lowest point of the 2020s so far, the data show. Only a record-breaking surge in auto thefts bucks the pattern.
Once again, the same law enforcement agencies that declared the city would devolve into anarchy due to officers leaving and/or simply refusing to the do the job they were (still) being paid to do were quick to take credit for something that directly contradicted the scenario they had presented two years earlier. MPD Chief Brian O’Hara claimed this decrease was the result of “data- and partnership-driven strategies” for taking guns off the street.
Again: maybe! I mean, we can hope cops are doing smarter, more meaningful work rather than just hassling minorities simply because they can. If constraints in resources have actually forced cops to be smarter (rather than just claiming they’re being smarter), I’m here for it.
There’s little that ties these crime decreases to law enforcement activity. Correlation, causation, etc. But one thing is undeniable: adding more cops isn’t the answer.
Violent crimes through the first nine months of 2023 in Minneapolis, compared to this same time a year ago, are trending downward, while the number of sworn officers available for patrols has now dipped to just 515.
Assistant MPD Chief Katie Blackwell, told a Minneapolis City Council committee the violent crime trends, including violence committed with guns, are headed the right way with homicides, robberies, and the gun violence index all down significantly from a year ago.
Blackwell goes on to say that that department is facing a “significant burden” and that “cops are getting tired.” I don’t doubt that’s true. But not a single police official — when faced with an uptick in attrition following the murder of George Floyd — ever bothered to consider the possibility that a mass exit in officers simply meant the PD was ridding itself of its most useless employees. The officers first to press the eject were most likely the same officers who routinely violated rights and/or engaged in cop busywork that did nothing to reduce violent crime, but definitely continued to deteriorate citizens’ opinion of law enforcement.
Leaner is cleaner. When resources are strained, they have to be utilized effectively. When there’s an excess of officers, people just tend to do what they want or whatever is easiest. It’s the way it works in the private sector. There’s no reason to believe the same thing doesn’t happen in the public sector.
Again, correlation is not causation. But law enforcement agencies continue to insist, despite evidence to the contrary, that the only way to effectively fight crime is to put more cops on the street. What’s happening in Minneapolis says otherwise. And it might be ok to simply let disgruntled cops walk off the job rather than subject themselves to additional accountability. The people leaving will generally be officers not worth keeping: the kind of employees who opt for easy/abusive as often as possible. Those who remain will work harder. But, more importantly, they’ll be forced to work smarter. And that’s when you’ll start seeing positive results. Flooding the streets with cops is nothing more than dilution which, as everyone knows, is a process that weakens whatever’s subjected to it.
