No Lives Matter, NYC Edition

This is the headline in the New York Post:  Shootings soar 205 percent after NYPD disbands anti-crime unit

The story doesn’t get any better.  If anything, it gets worse.

Here’s how it starts:

Gun violence exploded across the city after the NYPD disbanded its anti-crime unit of plainclothes cops on June 15, with three times as many shootings in the last two weeks of the month over the same period in 2019, police stats show.

And the shocking rise in gunfire — to 116 incidents from 38 between June 15 and June 2, a 205 percent increase — meant scores more victims were hurt or killed by bullets this year over last year.

Gunshot injuries skyrocketed to 157 from 47 in 2019, a 238 percent increase.

With a total of 205 shootings during the month, it was the bloodiest June in 24 years — going back to 1996, when the NYPD logged 236 incidents, the department said.

This increase happened, not over a span of months, but about two and a-half weeks.

As you might imagine, the Police Commissioner, Dermot Shea, was asked about it.

Shea described the group [the anti-crime unit of plainclothes officers] as a relic of the stop-and-frisk era, though he also praised plainclothes cops for “doing exactly what was asked of them.”

“They have done an exceptional job,” he said during the announcement. “But again I think it’s time to move forward and change how we police in this city.”

This is a delicious example of NewSpeak:  A massive increase in shootings shows that, indeed, it was “time to move forward” from previously effective policing practices by adopting ones featuring immediate and spectacular failure.

One must wonder what a “time to move backward” would look like.