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Comment by modo_mario | Hacker News Reader

> those who called for the short-sighted defunding of police departments in cities with high crime (look up the uptick in shootings and murder in NYC after the city removed $1 billion from the police department)

This is facilitating illegal insurrection? And NYC is your example...

Surely this could have nothing to do with covid and the whatever else but a 112% increase in shootings must be the consequence of a budget cut of a bit more than 1%.... Have you perhaps considered who it is that is registering this uptick in crime and drawing the connections? Why it was the insanely high to begin with. Like what? Do their janitors earn a million yearly?

Not having a slightly less mindblowing budget is not meaningfully facilitating illegal insurrection it's slightly more sane fiscal policy

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"Defund" has broad meaning to all changes that affect NYPD. Including more risk for NYPD officers to try and arrest a violent offender.

The topic is complicated, COVID + "Defund" + Other topics increasing crime in NYC.

It’s a good point, NYPD defunding itself can’t be tied directly to insurrection, but certain factions of the movement can be, as I detail in another response in the parent thread.

To me, the crime is high due to the unfortunate realities of inner city gang culture. Yes, historical factors cannot be ignored, and yes, police misconduct also does exist. Police reform is necessary, but a $1 billion budget cut ignores the reality of urban crime, and seem to cause a greater net amount of deaths, and the victims will unfortunately be mostly black/brown. Listening to a few of the chart-topping, yet violent rap songs should give an unfortunate indication of the current state of gang culture, and why the police provide an imperfect-yet-needed check to gang members.

But on the other hand, why would COVID cause an increase in shootings/murder? I could understand if there was an uptick in robberies, but from the data I’ve seen, the uptick is in shooting and murder.

And yet heavy policing has not solved those problems. It's almost like you should take care of underlying issues that cause these things (community disinvestment etc etc).

>But on the other hand, why would COVID cause an increase in shootings/murder?

The related lockdowns and such could play a role. I wasn't putting it forward as the sole factor but to me it seems more likely that this among other things like the police reporting differently because they're mad playing a bigger roll in a bloody 112% increase. That's a whole lot you realise that right?

Which brings me back to some of those questions left unanswered:

How do you tie a bit more than 1% decrease in budget to a 112% increase in shootings?

Do you have any reasonable argument for that?

Why do they spend such a ridiculously insane amount per employee, in total or however which way you want to calculate it?

Can you justify this given the results?

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