NYC riot another example of breakdown of our major cities

by Zain Jaffer

Early in August 2023, a Youtube and Twitch influencer with an estimated 3.6M followers on Youtube started a riot involving several thousand people in the NYC Union Square area in Manhattan. The influencer, Kai Cenat, promised to giveaway PlayStation 5 game consoles. Unfortunately for him and his crew, several thousand people came, mostly young people who wanted to get the game consoles. The resulting riots resulted in several injuries, fights, and damage to cars. NYC had to issue a major call to all police to respond, as the situation had gotten out of hand.

These types of incidents again add to an increasingly negative quality of life for people living in America’s major cities. Although urban and street crimes have always been a problem, the public always had a perception that the police departments could come in and solve the problem. After the defunding of police departments happened during the Biden administration, many police units can no longer respond to many calls, particularly for minor crimes like shoplifting, homeless loiterers on the streets, sometimes even drug use.

Admittedly in some instances in the past, issues of racism and police brutality bedeviled many police departments. But now the pendulum has swung too much in the other direction, giving street criminals, drug dealers, and other criminals free reign in their areas. Worse these crimes are being excused and even justified by certain woke city council officials.

Even the ACLU has stepped in to prevent the eviction of the homeless. While cities have had soup kitchens and proper places to stay for some of the homeless in the past, the current budget crunch have made these types of programs unfundable at the moment. Unfortunately the more people are living in the streets, it carries with it problems of alcoholism and drug abuse.

Aside from NYC, cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, and others share the same problem. These police defunding policies are the exact opposite of the policy that was enforced in NYC in the Nineties during the term of Police Commissioner William J Bratton, the only Commissioner to have served in both the NYC and Los Angeles Police Departments, as well as his formative years in the Boston PD.

Bratton's style of policing was influenced by the Broken Windows Theory, which basically said that if you allow the small things like broken windows, graffiti and minor street crimes to become acceptable, there is a tendency for the situation to gravitate further to more serious crimes. Bratton preferred a racially diverse police force representative of the population, going after gangs, and zero tolerance of anti-social behavior such as littering, graffiti, and the like.

Obviously these days the Broken Windows Theory is no longer in fashion, and has been replaced by a tolerance for these minor crimes. For many city residents they now know that the probability of becoming victim to street crimes such as shoplifting, muggings, carjackings, carnappings, and the like has increased. Videos of people walking into stores and simply taking merchandise and walking away with impunity are now commonplace. Foreign visitors and news viewers who are used to the traditional type of police presence in their countries are simply bewildered by these types of incidents on the news.

Unless the Mayors and City Councils of these major cities wake up to the fact that their cities are now hotbeds of uncontrolled crime, you should probably not be surprised if more of these types of uncontrolled riots occur. While there is no excuse for racial bigotry and abuse, the current situation is unacceptable and will simply lead to the death of our major cities.

SOURCES
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/04/nyregion/union-square-kai-cenat-twitch-giveaway.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/03/nyregion/bill-bratton-nypd-commissioner.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Bratton
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory
https://news.yahoo.com/lawsuit-claims-honolulus-homeless-policies-160200790.html