The San Francisco Bay Area, which has their own protesters demanding the police department be defunded, and has a homeless crisis that’s been ignored by Democrat officials for a very long time now, has seen its murder rate go up by 14 percent this year.
A member of the Vallejo City Council, the city that tops the charts with the largest number of murders, blames the increase on “systemic racism.” Of course, because what else could it possibly be?
“I think it’s the chickens coming home to roost,” said Hakeem Brown, who is running for the mayor’s seat, told the San Francisco Chronicle, adding, “I think it’s a lack of investment in our youth, a lack of opportunities … systemic racism in Vallejo and generations of poverty among poverty.”
I think Hakeem’s brain is surrounded by chicken wire. No time in our history saw more poverty than the Great Depression era, and the homicides back then were not as bad as things are today all across the country in blue states and cities. Poverty does not cause murder. Bad people acting within a failing culture do.
According to analysis of the growing crime rate done by the Chronicle:
While reports of robberies, rapes and smash-and-grab auto burglaries fell in the region’s largest cities, the most serious of violent crimes — homicides — crept up 14% over the first half of 2020, stalling a broader historical trend of fewer killings, a Chronicle analysis found.
Some of the increase can be traced to bloodshed in Vallejo. By the end of June, that city’s 13 killings were nearly triple the five recorded over the first six months of last year, and had eclipsed the 12 total people slain there in all of 2019. On Thursday, the city recorded its 14th killing of the year when a 21-year-old man was shot to death.
Overall, killings in the region’s 15 largest cities increased from 98 to 112 compared to January through June of last year. But while cities like San Francisco, Hayward and Berkeley witnessed more deadly violence, nowhere in the region experienced a spike as stark as Vallejo.
During an interview, David Abrams, a University of Pennsylvania Law School professor, said his study of crime trends discovered significant drops for several types of crimes in many large cities.
“Homicides are the exception,” he said and pointed out that crimes have either risen or stayed relatively flat in most of the cities he’s studied. He added that the Chinese virus pandemic “has definitely had a major impact on crime, with the exception of homicides and shootings.”
“The Chronicle’s homicide counts do not include killings by police or those deemed by authorities to be in self-defense, which aligns with state and federal figures and allows for historical comparison,” the outlet reported. “According to police crime data compiled by the Chronicle, six of the area’s largest cities experienced an increase in homicides over the first half of 2020, five cities recorded a decrease, and four cities’ counts stayed the same as the first six months of 2019.”
Rich is a conservative, syndicated opinion writer and owner of MAGA-Chat.com. He writes about politics, culture, liberty, and faith.
Fight tech tyranny. Join Rich on MAGA-Chat.com, where free speech is still free. Join the revolution!