If we had fewer cops, more reticent cops, less well-armed cops, or cops more constrained by stricter rules of engagement, would violence and crime in U.S. cities skyrocket? If the police took a week off, would we become “Mad Max”?
Pat Buchanan seems to suggest this in his latest column. Here’s the relevant passage:
Buchanan’s premise, as I read it, is that our cities are on the verge of bedlam, with only the cops keeping us from falling off the cliff. I’m pretty unconvinced by that notion. When I asked one NYPD friend about this, he pointed me to Chicago, and this blog post, which cites too few cops as the No. 1 reason of Rahm Emanuel’s murder problem. Also, the cops in Chicago have dumber tactics, according to this post. So, if Chicago’s inferior police force is a leading reason for many more murders, then Buchanan’s premise might be true.
But Buchanan’s column has a very interesting quote from D.C.’s top cop:
This gets at the heart of the Buchanan premise: when cops aren’t able to be in the neighborhoods, everyone is more at danger of getting murdered. Except it didn’t happen.
In the week of Dec. 13 through Dec. 20 — the week when most of these protests happened, dragging MPD away from the neighborhoods — no homicides were reported. Not a single one. Only one homicide happened in D.C. in the two weeks following the grand jury decision to not indict the New York City police officer who killed Eric Garner with a chokehold — police say it happened on a Tuesday morning.
As a NYC cop pointed out to me, on Sept. 11, 2001, there was no upswing in crime. Nor immediately after Hurricane Sandy.
We obviously need police. But if anyone believes that our police, in their large numbers, their liberty to engage, and their military-style arsenals, are the only guards against bedlam, they might be misguided
