After returning from harsh confinement, New Yorkers are now facing an unprecedented wave of violence on their streets. Shootings, homicides, war between gangs… An evil that extends to Chicago, Atlanta, Baltimore, Philadelphia and Milwaukee.
The Big Apple is burning. The city that until recently was the global epicenter of the pandemic today has no less serious problems: the numbers of homicides and shootings in its streets are “skyrocketing”, as is unemployment. The gangs no longer fear the Police, discredited and weakened after the demonstrations against the racial abuse of some of their members, while the authorities clamor for the courts to reopen to try to control the chaos. And the storm threatens to spread across the rest of the country. In the last week alone, New York was the scene of 47 shootings that left 15 dead, representing an increase of 176% over the previous year. Added to this is an increase in the homicide rate of 23%, as has not been seen for three decades, as well as the number of street fights and thefts of vehicles and residences.
The situation is so serious that the mayor of the city, Bill de Blasio, launched a call this week for the courts to reopen, in recess due to the coronavirus pandemic. “Our justice system needs to get back to full force. Our courts not only need to reopen, but they must also reopen completely as quickly as possible, ”the mayor insisted in his appeal after lamenting the shootings that occur especially in the Brooklyn and Bronx areas.
“The mayor is wrong. The solution is not to open the courts and fill the prisons again. The solution is not police, but social. All this increase in violence occurs because people are nervous, stressed by the uncertainty of what is going to happen in this country with them and their families, ”says Manny Fuentes, a community leader of Dominican origin who works with El Espectador. gangs in Brooklyn.
“Shooting in the streets is taking place among young people who know that the economy is in a tailspin, that soon there will be no work for them or their parents, and who, like everyone else, are living in a situation of permanent stress. What is happening is that the groups (of gang members) want to control the illicit businesses that guarantee them money and that is why the territories and such businesses are being disputed, ”he added.
On that point the Police agree, which attributes the resurgence of armed violence to the sum of several factors derived from the pandemic. “We had an early release of people from jail during the emergency, who left and today are causing armed confrontations and are committing various crimes. Today more people who should be in jail are not, “lamented Terence Monahan, chief of the New York Police Department.
The police chief admits that the institution is weakened and its prestige declining due to cases of abuse and complaints of racism by some of its members, which led to massive protests and reforms throughout the nation. “Between (events like) COVID-19, the bail bond legislation reform and the protests, all this caused resentment towards the Police. And this made them take us out of the neighborhoods that needed us the most, ”Monahan lamented in recent statements to CNN.
Emboldened criminals feel “that the police can no longer do anything, that no one likes the police, that they can get away with it, that it is safe to carry a gun on the street,” concluded the police chief.
Citizens see it that way too. “With all this Black Lives Matter scandal (campaign against racism and police abuse), the gang members ended up losing respect for the Police. Here we must pay attention to what the leaders of the gangs say and not to the Police, ”says Tatiana, a young Salvadoran who runs a small business that sends money to Central America located in the heart of the Bronx.
As a consequence of the demonstrations against police abuse, the New York Police Department dissolved its controversial “Unit Against Crime” in early July, made up of some 600 officers in plain clothes. And between May 25 and June 23, 272 uniformed officers requested their retirement. According to Pat Lynch, president of the Police Charity Association, hundreds of police officers are at their “breaking point” due to the anti-police climate the United States lives, which translates into budget cuts and changes in some laws and procedures.
The situation is similar to what the city experienced 30 years ago, when there were more than 2,000 murders a year. Last week, The New York Post was headlining on the front page, just as it did at the time when it called on then-Mayor David Dinkins to do something to contain the epidemic of violence. “Bill (Di Blassio) do something!” He told the current local president, and although they recognize that today’s crime numbers are not as bad as those of September 7, 1990, they warn that the direction is the same. “New Yorkers learned that it is completely possible to do something to confront it and make a big difference,” the Post noted.
Chaos spreads
But if the situation is particularly serious in New York, other American cities have also been affected by the unusual increase in violence on their streets, after they registered a decrease in the first weeks of the pandemic. Baltimore, Chicago, Philadelphia, Milwaukee and Los Angeles make major headlines. And the situation does not seem to improve. According to local newspapers, in Dallas, violent crime increased more than 14% from April to June; in Philadelphia, homicides were up 57% from 2019. In Atlanta, 31 people were shot over the past weekend, five fatally. In Milwaukee, homicides have increased by 95%, 82, so far this year, according to police. In the first week of June alone, the Los Angeles Police Department reported that homicides were up 250% compared to the previous week.
“We are deeply concerned that in the coming months we may see more violence,” said Thomas Abt, a member of the Criminal Justice Council quoted by local media. “As legitimacy declines, people in these communities simply do not use the criminal justice system to mediate conflict and instead resort to violence,” he said.
Trump’s response
Meanwhile, the government of Donald Trump tries to extract political profit from this situation, sending the military to the cities and accusing the Democratic mayors and governors of being weak in the face of crime. Trump does not miss an opportunity to suggest that behind these events is the same “left” sector that calls for racial justice, police reform and greater social investment. “Law and order are the basic components of the American dream, but if anarchy prevails, this dream collapses,” said Kayleigh McEnany, a spokeswoman for the White House, at a press conference.
Words loaded with electoralism at a time when presidential popularity is at a minimum due to the management of the COVID-19 pandemic, whose crisis has devastated the economy, until now the ballot with which Trump was betting to win re-election. That is why the president changed his strategy and is now running as the “law and order” candidate for the November 3 elections; this if you don’t postpone them, as you suggested.
Analysts warn that what is happening in American cities is an explosive cocktail that must be contained: an unemployment rate that has not been seen in a generation, a pandemic that has killed more than 150,000 people, the growing anger at brutality. police and the effects of contradictory measures before the advance of the virus.
But Trump’s campaign people, far from appeasing spirits, cross the red lines by assuring in thousands of messages broadcast on social networks that the states in the hands of Democratic leaders are “a war zone.” “This bloodbath must end,” Trump said, warning that if Jo Biden, his Democratic rival, wins the election, the violence will worsen.
A storm is coming, one that all forecasts anticipated and that could have been avoided …
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