The month of May saw tragic spikes in murder rates in Baltimore, New York, Chicago and other big cities—an alarming reversal of nearly 30 years of progress in reducing violent crime. Irresponsible media coverage of police-tensions with the black community combined with demagogic posing by leftist politicians and agitators to raise the levels of urban violence.

The obsessive focus on incidents of police shooting African-American males served to spread the false idea that the cops in general are a threat to black people, rather than the truth that police offer the chief source of protection against inner city brutality.

These media distortions lead to less cooperation with police, and less confident and effective policing. Most victims of the new murder epidemic are black, as are the suspected perpetrators, showing African-American youth facing a risk of violence from black civilians many times greater than the risk of confrontation with anyone wearing a police uniform.