3 Cities Avoided the Skyrocketing Murder Rate With Community Policing and Local Recruiting | Opinion Robert Cherry
, professor emeritus at Brooklyn College On 4/13/21 at 8:00 AM EDT
With George Floyd s trial entering its third week and being broadcast into the homes of millions of Americans, questions of police brutality are front of mind. To complicate matters, the trial is taking place on the heels of an unprecedented homicide spike; across urban America, murder rates throughout 2020 were up by one third, a staggering number. But not every major city saw such huge spikes: St. Paul s homicide increase was 13 percent compared to the 73 percent increase across the river in Minneapolis. St Petersburg s increase was five percent, in contrast to the 51 percent across the bay in Tampa; and in Newark, there was no increase while in nearby New York City, murder was up by 41 percent.