DEA Boss Joins FBI In Declaring 'Ferguson Effect' To Be A Real Thing; Offers Up 'Stuff I Heard' As Evidence
from the Exhibit-A:-Hearsay,-Conjecture,-Guys-At-The-Coffee-Shop dept
Late last month, FBI head James Comey contributed to the "Ferguson Effect" mythmaking, blaming unexplained spikes in violent crime on… citizens filming police officers. His argument? Officers fear for their power and no longer feel like exiting their vehicles to do their job.
A rebuttal from Comey's former boss, Eric Holder, arrived shortly thereafter.
"I don't agree with the comments that he's made about, or the connection he's drawn, between the so-called 'Ferguson effect' and this rise in crime," Holder said, adding that Comey seemed to be relying on anecdotes rather than data.But anecdotal evidence works best when actual evidence is lacking. The same can be said for the "War on Cops," which has been cobbled together using a regression to the mean following a historic low (2014) and a random smattering of social media posts about "putting wings on pigs," etc.
"You can't base policy on anecdotal evidence," Holder said. "It's hard for us to understand why crime dropped to historic lows over the last 40 years. I think it's probably equally difficult -- or even more difficult -- to explain why crime has gone up in some places, violent crime has gone up in some places, over the past 12 months. But I don't think it's connected to the so-called Ferguson effect."
James Comey remains resolute that this "effect" is leading to spikes in crime (themselves possibly a regression to the mean after years of historic lows). Now he has another federal ally in the "War on Logic."
Chuck Rosenberg, head of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, said Wednesday that he agrees with FBI Director James Comey that police officers are reluctant to aggressively enforce laws in the post-Ferguson era of capturing police activity on smartphones and YouTube.Rosenberg doesn't offer any evidence to back up his belief. Neither does Washington Post writer Todd C. Frankel, who inexplicably follows Rosenberg's baseless assertion with one of his own.
“I think there’s something to it,” Rosenberg said during a press briefing on drug statistics at DEA headquarters in Arlington. “I think he’s spot on. I’ve heard the same thing.”
The comments offer more support for the theory that, faced with increased scrutiny, the nation’s police officers are pulling back.No, they don't. Evidence that isn't strictly anecdotal or suffering from correlation/causation issues would "offer more support" for the "Ferguson Effect" theory. Another law enforcement official saying he's heard some stuff does not offer any additional support for this law enforcement theory.
In fact, Rosenberg spends more time hedging his assertion than defending it.
Rosenberg allowed that while he’s “not entirely sure what’s going on” with the sporadic increases in crime seen in some places, he believes “we should talk about it.”If Rosenberg and Comey want to "talk about it," they have to stop excluding the general public from the discussion. They need to stop publicly pushing narratives backed by nothing more than the vague unhappiness of law enforcement agencies that are no longer viewed as faultless pillars of their respective communities.
And as long as these two are "talking" about it, they might want to check in with the rest of the government. The recently-departed DOJ head said the "Ferguson Effect" is bogus. So did the White House.
“Mr. Rosenberg is the second administration official to make that kind of claim without any evidence,” press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters.What should be an insult to cops everywhere is instead being used by law enforcement agencies as a FUD delivery vehicle. The nation is already suffering from a rift between its citizens and its law enforcers. Comey and Rosenberg are making the situation worse by driving a wedge between their agencies and the White House. The instinctual move to blame any increase on crime on a loss of faith in law enforcement feeds into the Us vs. Them mindset that created the problem in the first place.
"The fact is, the evidence does not support the claim that somehow our law enforcement officers all across the country are shirking their duties and failing to fulfill their responsibility to serve and protect the communities to which they are assigned.”
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Filed Under: chuck rosenberg, crime rates, dea, eric holder, ferguson effect, james comey, police
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Wrong line of work
Any cop so terrified of a camera that it leaves them quivering with fear in their car should probably quit, and look for a job where they aren't interacting with members of the public so often. Maybe a nice, safe job as a cattle rancher perhaps?
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Re: Wrong line of work
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Cowards
The common thread to both "cops are scared of cameras" and "cops shoot unarmed people" is that too many cops are cowards.
You'd think with all that training, equipment, weapons, and authority they wouldn't have much to fear (being a commerical fisherman is more dangerous than being a cop).
Maybe all that gear & authority attracts insecure coward types.
Anyway, the solution is to fire the cops who can't take the pressure, and get new ones who can.
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Re: Cowards
That's a common trait among bullies.
You'd think with all that training, equipment, weapons, and authority they wouldn't have much to fear (being a commerical fisherman is more dangerous than being a cop).
Even being a convenience store clerk is more dangerous than being a cop. Yet, they aren't portrayed as "heroes" for risking their lives to keep us supplied with late night items. Funny, that.
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Therein lies the problem that the police have created for themselves, not in enforcing the law, but being excessively aggressive and confrontational about doing so.
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Re:
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Rise in violent crime is easily explained
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jul/08/heroin-use-overdose-deaths-us-prescription-op ioids
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Re: Rise in violent crime is easily explained
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Re: Re: Rise in violent crime is easily explained
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Re: Re: Re: Rise in violent crime is easily explained
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Rise in violent crime is easily explained
That's part of the reason why the clearance rate on murders in Baltimore in 2015 is 31.5%. The community has (quite sensibly) learned not to trust police implicitly.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Rise in violent crime is easily explained
That's part of my problem with modern policing. The definition of 'clearance' is the case is resolved and (in most cases) the suspect(s) is(are) known.
BUT: citation, arrest, and/or prosecution is NOT required for the police to declare a case cleared.
So when a police department claims a (hypothetical) 50% clearance rate that only means they know who committed the infractions; they have not necessarily cited or arrested the suspects.
If Baltimore really has a 31% clearance rate the police agencies there have some operational problems. If they had claimed a 31% arrest rate that I could believe.
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Re: Rise in violent crime is easily explained
But as a proportion of the (dropping) violence, you're right - more are more is drug related.
Nothing new about that - in the US nearly half of all prisoners are incarcerated on drug charges.
Yet nobody seems to learn. The Feds just keep moving from one drug panic to the next - each time creating a new crop of black market violence and non-violent prisoners. This week it's Oxycontin - next week, something else.
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Re: Re: Rise in violent crime is easily explained
and a majority of those are there because of the lack of public defenders and the resulting plea bargain bullshit.
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Re: Re: Re: Rise in violent crime is easily explained
Because most did violate the law, even tho they didn't hurt anyone (willing seller, willing buyer, consenting adults).
And even those who did hurt someone, did so because we've created a black market. Black market traders can't use the legal system to resolve their disputes - so they use violence.
If coffee were illegal, I'd be buying it on the black market.
But it's not, so I can buy it safely - cheap and high quality, at the supermarket.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Rise in violent crime is easily explained
In the absence of a fair trial we will never know.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Rise in violent crime is easily explained
In Portugal, this has been proven to work.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_Portugal
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Re: Re: Rise in violent crime is easily explained
Yet nobody seems to learn.
I can't believe "Just Say No" didn't work.
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Re: Re: Re: Rise in violent crime is easily explained
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Turns out, what we hear and what's actually true are completely different.
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Re: DEA and FBI were supposed to be protectors of America
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no middle ground
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Re: no middle ground
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FBI DEA DHS Group Think So Defective it is Pratically Insane
It is at St. Elizabeths where Comey and Rosenberg along with DHS Secretary Johnson can best apply their delusional group think vacuum chamber analysis in regard to the so-called "Ferguson Effect" in the proper setting a refurbished insane asylum.
Tax-payer funded straight-jackets for one and all!
http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2013-07-25/homeland-securitys-future-home-a-former-mental-hospi tal
Please read:
The Case for Abolishing the DHS
By Charles Kenny July 15, 2013
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security was a panicked reaction to the Sept. 11 attacks. It owes its continued existence to a vastly exaggerated assessment of the threat of terrorism. The department is also responsible for some of the least cost-effective spending in the U.S. government. It’s time to admit that creating it was a mistake.
http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2013-07-15/the-case-for-abolishing-the-dhs
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Re: FBI DEA DHS Group Think So Defective it is Pratically Insane
Straitjackets (strait means narrow or constrained).
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It's actually quite easy. There a 12,000+ local police departments in the US. Statistically, there will be some that go up and some that go down regardless of overall (aggregate)trends.
This is not a noise or entropy free system. There is a relatively large variability.
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However, they nearly 100% protect their own and never admit wrongdoing. This breeds contempt in the public and mistrust. It doesn't take much either. One bad interaction (either directly with or indirectly through friend/family or observation) will destroy trust. Once gone, it doesn't come back without Herculean efforts.
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I'm just going to leave this here
Border Patrol Agent Charged with Capital Murder
Former Texas deputy gets 13 years for child porn
Fired Unified police officer charged with sexually abusing teen girl
Veteran Richmond police officer arrested for child sex crimes
Update: UND police officer charged with 10 counts of possessing child porn
Overlooking police misconduct doesn't start with Lt. Joe Gliniewicz, life-long Wash. cop is now a murder suspect
Former Garland County Police Deputy Arrested
Florida deputy showed up staggeringly drunk to get an award from Mothers Against Drunk Driving
Former GBI agent arrested on multiple child molestation charges
h/t to Shaun King
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Re: I'm just going to leave this here
Are you saying that people shouldn't be upset because some police have been punished? This would be offering the same kind of anecdotal evidence that the article rails against. "See? Cops get punished too. Everything is fine."
Are you offering this as evidence that police do bad things and should be punished, as these people have?
The problem with leaving things here is that it's not clear what you're saying by leaving them.
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Re: Re: I'm just going to leave this here
The problem may be in part that police officers are shirking their duties because they don't like being held accountable for them by the public that they purportedly serve. But it should be dawning on everyone that another large part of the problem is that an alarming number of police are criminals and are using their positions of power in society to victimize others, often brutally.
As of today, 1,030 people have been killed by US police in 2015. I invite you to note how many officers have been prosecuted and how many of those have been convicted. After doing so, re-read the article we're commenting on and consider what the real Ferguson effect is.
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Maybe, in the future, include from the beginning something like what you just wrote so that people know where you're coming from, what your point is. Without that kind of contextual information, your list could be interpreted to just about any viewpoint. I tried to demonstrate that in my comment, though perhaps not well enough.
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Re: it's my party
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Re: I'm just going to leave this here
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anecdotal_evidence
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Violent crime decreases when you stop committing violent crimes.
Wouldn't that directly correlate to a decrease in violent crime?
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Re: Violent crime decreases when you stop committing violent crimes.
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War on Logic
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Re: War on Logic
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Re: War on Logic
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DEA head hallucinates problems where there are none, misses internal issues
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Almost sounds...
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Re: Almost sounds...
BTW, isn't this DEA chief already under scrutiny for his comments on marijuana in addition to the horrible-shit job he's done running his dept? How is his opinion even valid?
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Why isn't this bigger?
Almost nobody calls them out on this in the great mediums. This is not a political issue where the media so famously take obvious stands, but a threat against society nomatter the side you identify with.
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Silk purse? Sow's ear. No, more like sow
There's a difference between theory and conjecture. This doesn't even come close to qualifying as a theory.
...Come to think of it, this doesn't qualify as conjecture, either. This isn't guessing, it's blame-shifting. Never mind.
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Re: Silk purse? Sow's ear. No, more like sow
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We can make them safer for everybody.
Start by taking their guns.
They can call for one if they need one....
call it a "cooling off period"
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I heard the DEA are morons stating there is no benefits to medical marijuana.
I heard the DEA is also running a massive unconstitonal wiretapping program out of Califronia as well.
But That's None of My Business
kermit.jpg
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I truly believe this will eventually happen. You are free to disagree but think about how we have people being arrested for thought crimes. A governing body that likes to pretend their citizens have no rights. A police force that is treated for the most part that the laws do not apply to them and anyone that does not respect them deserves to be beaten, murdered or brutalized until they show the respect the police feel they deserve.
This is a police state tyranny America. Either continue along this path that so many dictatorships have charted through history or prepare for when people start fighting back.
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Re:
What you are referring to has already begun.
It will eventually be called the War on Radicalization, but it is indeed a war against dissent.
One of the primary purposes of war is to re-educate the next generation in the beliefs "the state" need them to hold true, while eliminating the youth who no longer believe the lies, through mutual extermination in a politically designed conflict with another nation who's owners need to do the same with their dissenting youth.
It is called "culling the herd".
As soon as you see your first hollywood movie about how children are being radicalized through their connections on the internet, by evil, silver tongued, non-Christian fanatical, religious terrorists, you will know the newest "war-on" is in full swing.
Thereafter, it will become a serious crime to say, write, or post online, anything un-nice about billionaires, millionaires, lawyers, politicians, police, military brass, and/or the CEOs of industry.
Shortly after that, the Internet will become Channel Zero, Zero, One, point #, and you'll need an electronic identity card to browse through the unlimited walled gardens of deceptive advertisements, false promises and online shopping catalogues.
Of course, if you're really rich, you can get a $50,000.00 annual VIP Citizen ID Card that is guaranteed anonymous, which lets you access the hidden Ownership Society Internet (OSI), where you can; among other things, purchase quality drugs of all sorts, direct from the factory/farm, and participate in inter-active child porn, and snuff films to your heart's content.
The future looks bright for those at the top of the food chain, in the United States of Hollywood.
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Anecdotes
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