FBI Director Blames "Viral Video Effect" for Murder Spikes

[vibranium]

The director of the F.B.I. reignited the factious debate over a so-called "Ferguson effect" on Wednesday, saying that he believed less aggressive policing was driving an alarming spike in murders in many cities.

 

James Comey, the director, said that while he could offer no statistical proof, he believed after speaking with a number of police officials that a "viral video effect" -- with officers wary of confronting suspects for fear of ending up on a video -- "could well be at the heart" of a spike in violent crime in some cities.

 

"There's a perception that police are less likely to do the marginal additional policing that suppresses crime -- the getting out of your car at 2 in the morning and saying to a group of guys, ‘Hey, what are you doing here?'" he told reporters.

 

Mr. Comey was wading back into a dispute from last fall that pitted him against some of his bosses at the White House and the Justice Department and one that roiled racial tensions over confrontations between police officers and minorities.

 

He first raised the idea in October that a "chill wind" had deterred aggressive policing. But Obama administration officials distanced themselves from Mr. Comey at the time. They said they had seen no evidence to support the idea of a "Ferguson effect," named after the 2014 shooting by a police officer of an unarmed black man in Ferguson, Mo., which sparked widespread protests.

 

Obama administration officials declined to comment on Wednesday about Mr. Comey's latest remarks, which were sharper in tone than his previous statements. But some dissenters said he was needlessly stirring up an unproven and divisive notion.

 

"He ought to stick to what he knows," James O. Pasco Jr., executive director of the National Fraternal Order of Police, said in a telephone interview. The organization has more than 330,000 members.

 

"He's basically saying that police officers are afraid to do their jobs with absolutely no proof," Mr. Pasco said.

 

 

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