By Charlie LeDuff
Look at those headlines! Detroit is no longer Number 1.
Mayor Duggan and Chief Craig
According to the latest FBI crime stats, St. Louis is now the most violent city in America. Detroit has fallen all the way down to . . . Number 2. Now that's progress!
But before we crank up the calliope, pump full the balloons and crankstart the clown carts, let's take a closer look. It ain't pretty.
Violent crime is up in Detroit. Yes, up. Despite the hot gas, the blue ribbons and the shifty pronouncements from City Hall, the citizens of the Motor City were the victims of more violent crime in 2017 than the year before. And look even closer. Violent crime has increased every year in Detroit since 2014, the first full year in office for both Mayor Mike Duggan and Police Chief Jame Craig.
Turns out the besieged citizens and the cops who attempt to protect them are telling the truth. Nothing much has changed in the neighborhoods where violent crime makes life unbearable. (Violent crime is defined as homicide, robbery, rape and aggravated assault.)
Cutting the Budget
The mayor's solution to a situation he surely knows is bad? He wants to cut the police budget by 5 percent. That's right, the mayor has asked for cuts from the police, fire and EMS in next year's budget.
In fact, after showering millions of dollars on his cronies, pet projects and billionaire contributors, Duggan has asked for a five percent budget reduction from all his departments, according to city officials. I'm for less government, but not less cops when crime is at endemic levels.
(Excuse me one moment, dear reader. . . . The phone is ringing. . . . Sorry, that was a source. . . One dead, two shot in a domestic dispute. Be on the lookout for a black truck.)
Violent Crime in Detroit
Year | Victims | Victims per 100,000 residents
2014 | 13,616 | 1,989
2015* | 13,560 | 2,014
2016 | 13,705 | 2,046
2017 | 13,796 | 2,057
Source: FBI
* Revised by the Detroit Police Department; classified as offenses
To disguise the obvious truth about violent crime, the mayor and chief like to pull the proverbial quarter-behind-the-ear trick.
They point to the falling murder tally: The fewest homicides in 50 years and eight fewer than we had at this point last year.
"We're making progress," the chief told a local paper. But, then again, the chief says that every year to the local papers.
Why are murders falling? Experts are divided. Perhaps the police are doing better work on preventing them. Maybe trauma care in the emergency rooms is more advanced. Maybe the new generation of gangster can't shoot straight. Maybe people are nicer or have enrolled in anger management courses. Maybe we have the fewest residents living in Detroit in 100 years.
Nevertheless, the only cities with higher homicide rates per capita than Detroit are St. Louis and Baltimore. But everybody knows that police in those cities slowed down and made fewer arrests following the fiery unrest after the Michael Brown and Freddie Gray incidents.
Comeback City?
But arrests are down one-third in Detroit since our fearless leaders took the helm, even though we've had no such violent unrest in Detroit.
So what's the excuse in Comeback City?
(I apologize, dear reader. . . . The phone is ringing again. . . . Two found murdered in a west-side home. Someone set the house on fire. It is a macabre cultural practice particular to Detroit to burn corpses in abandoned houses to cover one's tracks.)
But what else would you expect in a city with police wages and benefits at the bottom of the national barrel? How hard do you realistically expect cops to work? The president of the Detroit police union told me officers "are no longer proactive." That's a hell of an admission.
And, what type of new recruits are we're enticing to patrol America's SECOND most violent city?
(Hold on, dear reader. . . . The phone again. . . . The chief has just fired a probationary officer, a white man, who posted a racist rant about locking up "these zoo animals." He's been fired. So that's one for the chief.)
Too many of the good recruits are taking the free police academy training in Detroit and getting gone as soon as a higher paying job opens up in the suburbs. And so, it stands to reason -- the less you pay, the more you're going to attract bigoted Snapchat assholes like that guy.
What to do? The answer is obvious. (Hint: It's not cutting the police and it's not playing fast and loose with statistics.)
And before you drop the old trope that police can't prevent crime, ask yourself the simple question: Then why have police at all?
(Sorry: the phone, you know. Judge just set bail at $100,000 for the black kid who spit on a pizza.)
