OPINION:
The slogan “Black lives matter” and the movement it galvanized may have faded, but the problem of violent deaths in the African American community has not. Indeed, the problem has grown much worse. One of the causes — and it’s only one — is Black Lives Matter’s strong push against policing.
But guess what? When crime goes unpunished, we get more of it. The statistics are depressing and recur in big city after big city. The hard question remains: “What can we do about it?”
For example, most deaths by homicide (meaning a death caused by a criminal act) in Chicago are by gunshot. Also, most shooting victims in Chicago are Black males: 440 were shot and killed in 2022, and over 270 so far in 2023 — with many hundreds wounded.
For a detailed breakdown of Chicago homicides by method, location, name, age, race or ethnicity, and sex, go to the politically courageous website at https://graphics.suntimes.com/homicides/. If you haven’t looked at these kinds of statistics before, the numbers are shocking — and we must challenge other big city newspapers to publish the same kind of data. When, for example, will see such objectively published statistics for the District of Columbia?
Similar statistical dynamics as in Chicago are at work in Philadelphia: More than 500 homicides in 2022, with 84% killed or wounded by gunshots being Black. These same trends are with us again in Washington. In 2021, “victims and suspects of homicides [354] and nonfatal shootings [654] in the District of Columbia are primarily male, Black, and between the ages of 18-34. Nearly 92% of victims and suspects in homicides and 88% of victims and suspects in nonfatal shootings were male. About 96% of victims and suspects in both homicides and nonfatal shootings were Black.” This from a National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform report.
A challenging question for Chicago, Philadelphia, Washington and other big-city politicians and police leaders is “What if several hundred White males were killed in crimes by gunfire — and hundreds more wounded?” In this same context, perhaps, Whoopi Goldberg, co-host of “The View,” recently wondered on the air whether “we need to see White people get beat up” to see meaningful police reform. Good question.
Would something be done then? Perhaps even more politically painful is this reality: Couldn’t the fact that there have not been aggressive and effective public safety programs to make high-crime, majority-Black neighborhoods safe from gun crime be considered “racist”? If it’s not racist, what does “Black lives matter” really mean in this context, especially in Black neighborhoods with high rates of crime involving guns?
And how can our big-city political leaders ever be OK with Blacks shooting and killing Blacks as long as it’s mostly in high-crime Black neighborhoods? And how could this twisted logic ever be consistent with the idea that “Black lives matter”? But despite its political incorrectness, it seems to be the sad reality in Chicago, Philadelphia, Washington and way too many of our major cities.
It’s mostly Black people being shot and killed and wounded in high-crime neighborhoods, and it is mostly Black families dealing with the violent death or wounding of loved ones. This is also the sad “truth” behind the gun crime statistics in Chicago, Philadelphia, Washington, and many other big cities.
So, how should an aggressive and effective public safety program in violent neighborhoods be run?
Most importantly, because we have a public safety crisis in our high-crime and mostly Black urban neighborhoods, addressing it primarily as a public safety issue is absolutely required. This is not a racial issue and should never be viewed as one.
Next, this and other neighborhood programs must be tightly managed and aggressively overseen so as never to be criticized as racist or discriminatory. Accordingly, vigorous public and independent external oversight must be an essential and required part of every program. This is because arrests stemming from gun violence will also likely reflect the racial and ethnic gun violence statistics in high-crime neighborhoods — but this will change as streets and neighborhoods become safer.
Gun bans are ineffective since inner-city criminals and gangs — just like big-city organized crime — will continue to get their guns illegally. Accordingly, their guns must be taken in aggressive public safety programs focused on high-crime neighborhoods. Just as important, gun-related crimes of all kinds must be prosecuted to the full extent of the law — and releasing violent criminals who use guns in their crimes back on the street is a bad idea, as it guarantees more gun-related crime.
In sum, if “Black lives really mattered,” Blacks shooting, killing and wounding Blacks in high-crime neighborhoods would never be tolerated as the status quo. It’s long past time to deal much more aggressively with these dangerous realities as critical public safety matters, as was done successfully several years ago against big-city organized crime.
Have we forgotten, for example, the very well-orchestrated law enforcement takedown of the massive D.C. crack cocaine ring run by Rayful Edmond in the 1980s? It was a huge criminal organization doing $300 million [over $1 billion today] worth of street and neighborhood drug sales a year and responsible for hundreds of murders.
We must get at least this same scale and intensity of law enforcement operations to protect our big-city streets and neighborhoods from gun crime.
• Daniel Gallington served in senior positions at the Justice and Defense departments, as bipartisan general counsel for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and as adjunct professor of law at the University of Illinois College of Law.
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