By Valerie Richardson - The Washington Times - Sunday, June 28, 2020

Democrats’ wait-until-November approach to police legislation is suddenly under attack from both the right and the left as evidence of a new crime wave emerges.

Sen. Tim Scott, South Carolina Republican, cited New York City figures released last week showing that overall crime fell from the same period last year, but that murder had increased by 79%; shootings were up 64%, and burglaries rose 34%.

“The question is, what is the consequence of trying to demonize and stereotype all law enforcement?” said Mr. Scott on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “Well, New York City is starting to give us the answer.”

His comments came after Senate Democrats blocked last week debate on his JUSTICE Act, a policing bill that would have made lynching a federal crime, provided incentives for localities to use body cameras and cease chokeholds and improved data collection.

In fact, Republicans said the bill was similar in many respects to the House Justice in Policing Act passed Thursday, but Mr. Scott said Democrats refused to discuss amendments or strike a compromise, blaming the intransigence on “presidential politics.”

“We could do so much together for those folks in the streets today,” Mr. Scott said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “We missed a golden opportunity, not because the bills weren’t similar enough, but because what the House wanted was not what the Senate Democrats wanted to have a conversation about.”

One sticking point was the House bill’s ending of qualified immunity for officers from civil lawsuits, which Mr. Scott said would have “stereotyped” officers, both good and bad.

“When you start demonizing and stereotyping all law enforcement as evil and bad, you start putting targets on their backs,” Mr. Scott said. “You start seeing them withdraw from some areas and that creates a powder keg. That’s not good for the nation.”

Indeed, even before the protests spurred by the May 25 death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody, some cities, including Minneapolis, were showing troubling upticks in some crimes.

Serious crimes such as robbery, burglary and assault rose 70% last year in the Downtown East neighborhood, according to a Minneapolis Star-Tribune analysis, while robberies rose 53% in the city’s central downtown, driven by packs of teens, as reported by City Pages.

In Milwaukee, the homicide rate spiked by 96% in 2020 compared to the previous year, from 25 to 49 homicides, according to police figures reported last month by CBS58.

The uptick in some areas comes after overall U.S. crime dropped for about 25 years after peaking in 1991, according to a Brennan Center report that examined the trend from 1990-2016.

In 2016, however, violent crime in cities rose, which Manhattan Institute fellow Heather Mac Donald attributed to what she dubbed “the Ferguson effect.”

On the other side are progressives pushing for a radical overhaul of policing. Democrat-controlled city governments have responded to the protests and rioting with proposed cuts to police departments after calls by Black Lives Matter to “defund the police.”

The Minneapolis City Council voted unanimously Friday to place a measure on the November ballot that would eliminate the police department and replace it with a Department of Community Safety and Violence Prevention. The proposal must still clear the charter commission.

Given that Democrats have controlled most major city governments for decades, however, the promises of reform have rung hollow with some protesters.

Hawk Newsome of Greater New York Black Lives Matter said that many Black people simply don’t trust either party.

“What we have to understand is: Black people do not trust politicians,” Mr. Newsome said on “Fox News Sunday.” “They don’t trust Democrats, they don’t trust Republicans. Black people also have a problem with government overstepping its bounds. The biggest manifestation of that is policing.”

Mr. Newsome, who drew headlines last week for saying on Fox that protesters would “burn down the system” if they don’t get what they want, called for a major funding transfer from policing to community services, education and job development.

“Over 80% of their calls are not violent felonies,” said Mr. Newsome. “Therefore, we should really look into why police are being called. Look at the causes of why people are committing crimes. They’re desperate, they’re poor, they’re undereducated, and they are left out to dry by this American system of government.”

Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, who represents Washington, D.C., defended the Democratic reaction to the George Floyd demonstrations, crediting the rapid response to “the impatience in the streets.”

She also stood up for the Senate Democrats’ decision to block Mr. Scott’s policing bill, calling it a “disgrace.”

“They blocked it, that is to say they would not agree to any part of it, because it was a disgrace,” Ms. Norton told “Fox News Sunday,” adding that “it didn’t even rise to the level of a remedy.”

That said, Mr. Scott said he has no plans of abandoning the fight. “I look forward to having the conversation with my House colleagues that have been very serious,” he said, crediting Rep. Karen Bass, California Democrat, for being “very serious about getting to a compromise.”

“I spoke with her last week, and we’re going to get together this week and that’s good because I’m serious about getting something done,” said Mr. Scott. “But we cannot get something done if the Democrats in the Senate are more interested in presidential politics than they are getting something actually finished this year.”

• Valerie Richardson can be reached at vrichardson@washingtontimes.com.

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