58% Think There's A War on Police in America Today
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While reacting to the recent murder of a Harris County, TX sheriff’s deputy, Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke told Jeanine Pirro on Fox News Saturday that President Barack Obama “started this war on police” and called upon “every law abiding person in the United States of America to stand up and against this slime, this filth, disparaging American law enforcement officers.”
Clarke isn’t the first law enforcement official to publicly denounce the anti-police attitude propagated by the “Black Lives Matter” movement. At a Saturday press conference, Harris County district attorney Devon Anderson called on the “silent majority in this country to support law enforcement.”(RELATED: Texas Officials Condemn ‘Open Warfare’ On Copos [VIDEO])
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58% Think There's A War on Police in America Today
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Wednesday, September 02, 2015
With officers murdered in Texas and Illinois in just the last few days, most voters now believe the police are under attack in America and blame politicians critical of the cops for fanning the flames.
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 58% of Likely U.S. Voters think there is a war on police in America today. Just 27% disagree, while 15% are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)
Sixty percent (60%) believe comments critical of the police by some politicians make it more dangerous for police officers to do their jobs. Only 18% think those comments improve the quality of the police’s performance. Thirteen percent (13%) say the politicians’ comments have no impact.
While there is usually a wide racial difference of opinion on questions related to the police, most black voters (54%) agree with the majority of white (60%) and other minority voters (56%) that there is a war on police underway.
Blacks (36%) are far less likely than whites (66%) and other minorities (55%), however, to say the comments of some politicians are making it more dangerous for the police. There’s very little belief in any of the groups, though, that the comments are improving police performance.
Protests against the police have been growing since the killing in August 2014 of a black teenager by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, although a grand jury did not indict the officer for any wrongdoing. That incident followed by several similar ones around the country led to the establishment of the “Black Lives Matter” movement to protest perceived racist behavior by many police officers.
Eighty-two percent (82%) of black voters think most black Americans receive unfair treatment from the police. White voters by a 56% to 30% margin disagree. Other minority voters are evenly divided.
(Want a free daily e-mail update? If it's in the news, it's in our polls). Rasmussen Reports updates are also available on Twitter or Facebook.
The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on August 31-September 1, 2015 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.
Seventy-two percent (72%) of Americans have a favorable view of the police in the area where they live. Most (66%) also approve of the tactics used by their local police officers.
Those under 40 believe even more strongly than their elders that there is a war on police going on, but these younger voters are less likely to think politicians critical of the police are making it worse.
Seventy-eight percent (78%) of Republicans think there is a war on police now, compared to 48% of Democrats and 52% of voters not affiliated with either major party.
Twenty-six percent (26%) of Democrats believe political comments critical of the police are improving the officers’ performance, but just 12% of GOP voters and 15% of unaffiliateds agree. Seventy-nine percent (79%) of Republicans and 62% of unaffiliated voters think these comments make it more dangerous for the police to do their jobs, a view shared by only 44% of voters in President Obama’s party.
Seventy-seven percent (77%) of voters who say there is now a war on police believe the critical comments by some politicians make it more dangerous for the cops. Among those who don’t think there is a war on police going on, 35% say the comments improve police performance; 30% say it makes things more dangerous, while 28% think the comments have no impact.
Only 17% of all voters believe politicians raise racial issues to address real problems. Seventy percent (70%) think they talk race just to get elected.
Americans are skeptical of the protests that followed white-on-black police incidents in Fergusonand in Baltimore, Maryland.
Just 13% think most deaths that involve the police are the fault of the policeman. Seventy percent (70%) of voters believe the level of crime in low-income inner city communities is a bigger problem in America today than police discrimination against minorities
Only 19% of black voters think the justice system is fair to blacks and Hispanics, however, compared to 50% of whites and 44% of other minority voters.
Some have countered the “black lives matter” slogan by saying, “all lives matter.” Voters overwhelmingly agree.
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The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on August 31-September 1, 2015 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.
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· · · · ·
Black Lives Matter activists tried to disrupt the Minnesota State Fair on Saturday and marched down the street, chanting “Pigs in a blanket, fry ’em like bacon” and shouting for the deaths of police officers.
Following the murder of Darren Goforth, 47, a 10-year veteran of the Harris County Sheriff’s Office, Sheriff Ron Hickman slammed anti-police rhetoric coming out of Black Lives Matter activists and politicians. Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clark went even further, saying “President Obama has breathed life into this ugly movement.”
“It is time now for good, law-abiding Americans to rise up like they did in Houston around that Chevron station, an outpouring,” Clarke stated. “But it can’t just be symbolic, we now have to counter this slime, this filth coming out of these cop-haters.”
In fact, the Democratic Party approved a resolution last week praising the group that has harassed and interrupted their presidential candidates on the campaign trail, despite activists chanting “Pigs in a blanket, fry ’em like bacon” at the Minnesota State Fair on Saturday.
But, according to a recent survey, as well as a number of surveys PPD has tracked over the past year, the vast majority of voters agree with and support Sheriff Hickman and Sheriff Clark, as well as their fellow law enforcement brethren across the nation.
A new Rasmussen Reports survey finds that 58% of likely voters think there is a war on police in America today, while 60% believe comments critical of the police by politicians fan the flames and make it more dangerous for police officers to do their jobs. Just 27% disagree about there being a “war on the American police officer,” as Sheriff Clark stated, and only 18% think such comments improve the quality of the police’s performance. Voters under 40 believe even more strongly than their elders that there is a war on police, but are less likely to think politicians critical of the police are making it worse.
While we have repeatedly observed a wide racial divide in the difference of opinion on questions related to the police, even most black voters (54%) agree with the majority of white (60%) and other minority voters (56%) that there is a war on police underway in contemporary America. Seventy-eight percent (78%) of Republicans think there is a war on police now, compared to 48% of Democrats and 52% of voters not affiliated with either major party.
However, blacks (36%) are still far less likely than whites (66%) and other minorities (55%) to believe that comments out of politicians like Obama and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio are making it more dangerous for the police. Interesting, there’s very little to no statistically significant difference between the belief in any of the groups over whether these comments are improving police performance. By party, 26% of Democrats believe political comments critical of the police are improving the officers’ performance, but just 12% of Republicans and 15% of unaffiliated voters agree.
A whopping 79% of Republicans and 62% of unaffiliated voters say these comments make it more dangerous for the police to do their jobs, but a smaller 44% of Democrats share their view.
Even though protests against the police have been growing since Officer Darren Wilson shot and killed 18-year old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, support for police nationwide has steadily been on the rise. Consequently, a grand jury did not indict Wilson because it became clear that the “hands up, down shoot” mantra was built on a complete lie. Brown, who committed strong arm robbery moments before the altercation, attempted to take Wilson’s gun before charging the officer.
In December 2014, Americans overwhelmingly (67%) said that their local police are their protectors and gave them high ratings in appreciation of the job they do on a daily basis. Most also said that they believe deaths that involve policemen are usually the fault of the suspect, not the cop. Now, support for police nationwide has risen. According to the latest survey taken in mid-August, 72% of Americans have a favorable view of the police in the area where they live. Further, two-thirds (66%) also said they approve of the tactics used by their local police officers.
Worth noting, on Wednesday, judicial proceedings officially began in Baltimore regarding the case of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old man who died while in police custody. In April, just 25% of American adults said the riots in Baltimore, Maryland were sparked by legitimate grievances, while 63% said it was predominantly the result of criminal actions of opportunists taking advantage of a tragic situation. In March 2015, 70% of likely voters said the level of crime in low-income inner city communities was a bigger problem in America today than police discrimination against minorities.
“If there’s anything that needs to be straightened out in this country, it is the subculture that has risen out of the under-class in the American ghetto,” Sheriff Clarke said. “Fix the ghetto, and you will see a lesser need for assertive police officers or policing in these areas, and then you’ll see less confrontation. Stop trying to fix the police. Fix the ghetto.”
Americans couldn’t agree more, and also fault the media alongside politicians. According to PPD tracking, 61% of all voters think the media overhypes incidents in which blacks are shot by white police officers, and a slightly higher 63% say this media coverage is putting police officers in harms way.
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· · ·
NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton on Tuesday endorsed the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s controversial theories about the “crumbling” of poor black families — and warned that the country faces “tough times” due to the ongoing war on cops.
In an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program, Bratton blamed a recent spate of senseless murders on the “many young people who have grown up in an environment in which the … traditional norms and values are not there.”
Bratton said that over the weekend he read Moynihan’s “famous treatise from the ’60s,” in which Moynihan wrote that the country faced a “new crisis in race relations” due to a “tangle of pathology” in black communities.
“The evidence — not final, but powerfully persuasive — is that the Negro family in the urban ghettos is crumbling,” Moynihan wrote in 1965, while working as an assistant secretary in the US Department of Labor.
Police Commissioner Bill BrattonPhoto: Getty Images
“Talk about being prescient about what was going to happen in black society, in terms of he was right on the money, the disintegration of family, the disintegration of values,” the city’s top cop said.
“It’s gone beyond just the black community, although so much of what you are reading in The New York Times today is centered largely in communities of color in our major cities. We really need to find ways to deal with this.”
Bratton also predicted dire consequences from the national “momentum against police,” saying that “many people do need to be in jail, they don’t need to be on the streets.”
“All the turmoil we are experiencing now is causing us to re-examine: What are we all about? How do we police? How do we police effectively?” Bratton said.
“And I remain optimistic about this as we go forward. But we’re going to be in for some tough times first.”
The commish also denied claims by host Joe Scarborough “that the police have been told to back off on taking homeless people to shelters,” saying cops recently broke up 50 homeless encampments and offered help to about 100 vagrants.
“Only 10 of them accepted services,” Bratton said.
“This is a service-resistant population who, for a variety of reasons, prefer to be on the street.”
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· · ·
A controversial new Russian law on the retention of personal computer data has gone into force, raising questions about the possible impact on the world's largest Internet companies and the privacy of the customers they serve — and whether the law can even be effectively enforced.
The law, which took effect on September 1, requires Russian and foreign companies to store data for customers who are Russian citizens on servers housed on Russian territory.
That has sparked concerns among privacy advocates who fear the law will further restrict speech in Russia, where the Internet has served as a freewheeling and largely unhindered forum for public debate, particularly compared with traditional media outlets.
Michael Sulmeyer, director of The Cyber Project at the Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center, said Russia isn't the first country to explore asserting more control over computer users' personal data.
The law, which took effect on September 1, requires Russian and foreign companies to store data for customers who are Russian citizens on servers housed on Russian territory.
That has sparked concerns among privacy advocates who fear the law will further restrict speech in Russia, where the Internet has served as a freewheeling and largely unhindered forum for public debate, particularly compared with traditional media outlets.
Michael Sulmeyer, director of The Cyber Project at the Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center, said Russia isn't the first country to explore asserting more control over computer users' personal data.
But, he said, "the big test for the principle is certainly Russia, and it's not too terribly surprising given what's been happening in Russia recently."
Despite earlier efforts by former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, now the prime minister, to instill a Silicon Valley-style ethos in Russia, the Kremlin's attitude toward the Internet has cooled since Vladimir Putin's return to the presidency in 2012. Last year, Putin publicly called the Internet a "CIA project."
Regulators have also adopted increasingly strict regulations on bloggers, requiring them to register if they reach a certain threshold of readerships or followers.
Earlier this year, Russia's media oversight agency, Roskomnadzor, threatened to shut down Wikipedia's Russian site because it contained material about marijuana.
Companies that don't comply with the new law will be included in a blacklist, under court order by Roskomnadzor, and subject to a fine of up to 300,000 rubles, or around $5,000. Roskomnadzor can also order Internet providers to block access to violators.
'Race to the bottom'
Despite earlier efforts by former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, now the prime minister, to instill a Silicon Valley-style ethos in Russia, the Kremlin's attitude toward the Internet has cooled since Vladimir Putin's return to the presidency in 2012. Last year, Putin publicly called the Internet a "CIA project."
Regulators have also adopted increasingly strict regulations on bloggers, requiring them to register if they reach a certain threshold of readerships or followers.
Earlier this year, Russia's media oversight agency, Roskomnadzor, threatened to shut down Wikipedia's Russian site because it contained material about marijuana.
Companies that don't comply with the new law will be included in a blacklist, under court order by Roskomnadzor, and subject to a fine of up to 300,000 rubles, or around $5,000. Roskomnadzor can also order Internet providers to block access to violators.
'Race to the bottom'
It was unclear exactly what impact the law would have on major international Internet companies, and which ones would comply the law.
According to Roskomnadzor, eBay and PayPal are among the most notable companies agreeing to house data on Russian-based servers, along with hardware makers Lenovo and Samsung, and the web-based taxi service Uber.
"The challenge that Russia finds itself in, is how you enforce your law on companies and services that aren't based in Russia?" said Danny O'Brien, international director for the nonprofit advocacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation.
"If Russia is requiring Facebook and Google house servers in their territory, what's to stop any other country from requiring the same thing?" he added. "It's a race to the bottom."
Among those whose compliance was in doubt, however, was Facebook. The Russian newspaperVedomosti reported on August 26 that the U.S.-based social media giant did not intend to comply with the law.
According to Roskomnadzor, eBay and PayPal are among the most notable companies agreeing to house data on Russian-based servers, along with hardware makers Lenovo and Samsung, and the web-based taxi service Uber.
"The challenge that Russia finds itself in, is how you enforce your law on companies and services that aren't based in Russia?" said Danny O'Brien, international director for the nonprofit advocacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation.
"If Russia is requiring Facebook and Google house servers in their territory, what's to stop any other country from requiring the same thing?" he added. "It's a race to the bottom."
Among those whose compliance was in doubt, however, was Facebook. The Russian newspaperVedomosti reported on August 26 that the U.S.-based social media giant did not intend to comply with the law.
Roskomnadzor confirmed in a statement that its chief had met with a Facebook representative but declined to characterize the discussions.
Facebook, which is headquartered in California, refused repeated requests to comment. A spokesman told RFE/RL in an email: "We regularly meet with government officials and have nothing more to share at this time."
Microsoft said only that some of its services were subject to the new law and that the company would comply with those services.
"We don't believe we customize or market our consumer services to Russian citizens in a way that makes them subject to the new law," a company spokesman said in a statement.
Google refused to comment on the law, as did other major companies. IBM, Wikipedia's parent foundation, and eBay did not respond to queries seeking comment.
Anton Nossik, a widely read blogger whom many consider the godfather of the Russian blogosphere, said that the law's many faults included the lack of a sensible way to distinguish between the citizenship of users.
In a September 1 blog post, Nossik said that Wayback Machine -- a San Francisco-based online archive for other websites -- had been blocked briefly by at least one Russian Internet service provider. It was unclear if the reported blockage was specifically related to the new law.
Facebook, which is headquartered in California, refused repeated requests to comment. A spokesman told RFE/RL in an email: "We regularly meet with government officials and have nothing more to share at this time."
Microsoft said only that some of its services were subject to the new law and that the company would comply with those services.
"We don't believe we customize or market our consumer services to Russian citizens in a way that makes them subject to the new law," a company spokesman said in a statement.
Google refused to comment on the law, as did other major companies. IBM, Wikipedia's parent foundation, and eBay did not respond to queries seeking comment.
Anton Nossik, a widely read blogger whom many consider the godfather of the Russian blogosphere, said that the law's many faults included the lack of a sensible way to distinguish between the citizenship of users.
In a September 1 blog post, Nossik said that Wayback Machine -- a San Francisco-based online archive for other websites -- had been blocked briefly by at least one Russian Internet service provider. It was unclear if the reported blockage was specifically related to the new law.
The website reportedly holds about 150 billion iterations of different sites worldwide going back to 1996.
Nossik called the new law a "crooked and moronic normative act" that, from a legal standpoint, is about as useful as toilet paper.
Nossik called the new law a "crooked and moronic normative act" that, from a legal standpoint, is about as useful as toilet paper.
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The nation’s top law enforcement official offered a sobering and blunt warning to Americans today: “It is a sad fact now that no one is safe."
Attorney General Loretta Lynch was responding to a spate of “tragic” and “particularly troubling” attacks across the country in recent weeks.
“We have seen violence strike at all segments of our community,” she noted before listing several “brutal” cases from the past couple of months: The June massacre inside an historic church in Charleston, South Carolina; the attack at a Tennessee movie theater in July; and last month’sterrorist attack on military personnel in Tennessee.
“The particularly violent shootings of two Virginia reporters killed on air last week," Lynch said, also noting the deadly ambush of an officer pumping gas in Texas last week, and Tuesday’s fatal shooting of a police officer in Illinois.
"This violence against all of us -- regardless of what uniform any of us wear -- has to end,” Lynch said.
She said she “strongly condemn[s]” the recent attacks on police officers, adding, “Our hearts are broken over this.”
Lynch, speaking to a crowd at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, said her own agency, the Justice Department, is trying to determine exactly what is behind the “uptick in violent crime.”
She noted that she’s holding a summit in Detroit later this month with law enforcement from certain cities around the country to discuss ways to address the issue. In addition, she has asked some U.S. attorneys to set up similar meetings in their own areas because "specific causes" of violence are "different in every location," she said.
KYIV -- By all accounts, Ihor Humenyuk was a brave and selfless fighter against Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.
"We met in the thick of things, in [the village of] Pisky," recalls fellow volunteer fighter Volodymyr Nazarenko. "I'd say he was a brave and confident fighter who risked his life in some of the hottest fighting, including in Pisky near the Donetsk airport."
Now, however, authorities in Ukraine have accused the 24-year-old Humenyuk of throwing a grenade at security forces outside the country's parliament on August 31, killing three national guardsmen and wounding dozens more. It was an act that President Petro Poroshenko has described as "a stab in the back" to the entire country.
Humenyuk, 24, admits that he was at the fatal demonstration but denies that he threw the grenade, defense lawyer Sidor Kizin told journalists on September 1. Police officials, however, said that he admitted throwing the explosive under questioning and that another, identical grenade had been found during a search of his residence.
Humenyuk is a member of the Sich volunteer military battalion organized under the auspices of the ultranationalist Svoboda party. In a video posted on YouTube, he says that he served as a beat officer in the police, in addition to serving in combat in eastern Ukraine.
WATCH: Ihor Humenyuk Talks About Himself On YouTube (in Ukrainian)
"Before that I was a student and I actively participated in the Maidan," he says, referring to the 2013-14 pro-EU unrest that ousted former President Viktor Yanukovych. "I fought against the Berkut [riot police] on February 20 and was with the boys when the snipers were shooting. Then we went together into a volunteer battalion. I spent a year in the antiterrorism operation. We have been defending our mother Ukraine with weapons in our hands already for a year."
But now that he has been arrested, some of Humenyuk's comrades have been trying to distance themselves from him. In an interview with RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service, Sich commander Oleh Pisarenko said Humenyuk was a good soldier but that he had recently submitted his resignation from the battalion. Asked about the hand grenade from the August 31 demonstration, Pisarenko was certain it didn't come from his arsenal.
"Either it was some sort of war trophy or someone in Kyiv gave it to him," Pisarenko said. "I don't see any other possibility."
A spokesman for the Svoboda party, Yuriy Sirotyuk, told RFE/RL that Humenyuk was not a member of the party "on August 31." He noted that it is not legal for police officers to be members of political parties and declined to say whether Humenyuk was a Svoboda member before he joined the police force.
However, there are indications that Humenyuk was fairly prominent within Svoboda. He was featured in military uniform in a photograph that was part of the party's campaign materials for the 2014 parliamentary elections.
Also, under the pseudonym Ihor Dubenko, he appears in an online video promoting the patriotic youth organization Sokol. In another video, posted in December 2014, Humenyuk expresses the disenchantment that many Maidan activists felt when reforms did not come rapidly after Yanukovych fled the country.
WATCH: Ihor Humenyuk Dissatisfied With Pace Of Reform (in Ukrainian)
"You know what people say --- those who help the Maidan and took part in the Maidan," Humenyuk says. "They are all talking about being betrayed. Surely Yanukovych also thought he would be in power forever, that he could just spit on the people, that he has the Berkut and other units and would always be able to keep the people obedient."
"But it is not possible to keep our people in obedience," he continues. "That is why our government must always remember that we can tolerate a situation for a certain amount of time -- but at some moment we will burst. Everything is up to the government now."
The three victims killed in the August 31 bombing have been identified as Ihor Debrin, 25, Dmytro Slastniko, 21; and Oleksandr Kostin, 20. All three were National Guard conscripts.
Debrin, who celebrated his birthday on August 16, was buried on September 2. Kostin reportedly was married immediately before entering the National Guard.
Ninety other guardsmen were wounded in the blast.
RFE/RL correspondent Robert Coalson contributed to this report from Prague
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· · ·
The United States and the European Union are widening sanctions against dozens of Russians and Ukrainian individuals and entities with connections to Crimea's annexation and the ongoing violence in eastern Ukraine.
In an announcement published in the U.S. Federal Register on September 2, the U.S. administration said it was adding 29 people to its sanctions list.
Some of those added have ties to Kremlin-linked insiders and companies who were previously sanctioned, including Gennady Timchenko, a wealthy oil trader believed to be close to President Vladimir Putin.
A total of 33 companies or other entities were cited, including subsidiaries of state-owned oil giant Rosneft, headed by Putin ally Igor Sechin, and the company that manufactures Kalashnikov assault rifles. Crimea's top ferry operator and several ports on the Black Sea peninsula, which was annexed by Russia in March 2014, were also blacklisted.
Among other things, the sanctions, imposed by the Commerce Department, make it more difficult for the companies and individuals to get export licenses for goods and materials from the United States.
The European Union, meanwhile, said it would extend the freezing of assets and visa bans for 150 Russians and Ukrainian separatists, along with 37 companies and entities either located in Crimea or having ties to separatist units in eastern Ukraine.
The announcement expands the sanction list first imposed last year by the 28-member bloc, and had included other top Russian officials such as Deputy Prime Ministers Dmitry Rogozin and Dmitry Kozak.
In Moscow, the Foreign Ministry called the new sanctions illegitimate and added to "hostile actions" taken by the United States against Russia. Moscow warned it would respond with unspecified retaliatory measures.
"The action of the United States devalues the signals that it is interested in cooperating with us in resolving myriad pressing international problems," the ministry said in a statement. "The United States should have no illusions that it could continue this course without negative consequences for themselves," it said.
Оther top Russian and Ukrainian officials who were previously sanctioned by the United States include Vladislav Surkov, an influential aide to Putin; Valentina Matviyenko, head of Russia's upper house of parliament; and Viktor Yanukovych, the Ukrainian president who was ousted amid violent protests in Kyiv in February 2014.
The crisis in Ukraine has sent relations between the West and Moscow to lows not seen since the Cold War. Russia has struggled to prop up Crimea's economy, which is now all but cut off from Ukraine. Fighting in eastern Ukraine has ebbed in recent days, according to international observers.
More than 6,800 people are estimated to have died in the conflict, according to United Nations estimates.
Despite the gravity of the crisis, the efforts of Washington and Brussels to influence Moscow to reverse the annexation and stop its backing of separatist forces have been mixed at best.
In a report last month, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimated that the Western sanctions, and the retaliatory measures taken by the Kremlin, had reduced Russia's real gross domestic product by between 1 and 1.5 percent. In the medium run, the measures could result in a drop in cumulative output of up to 9 percent of GDP, though the IMF cautioned that wasn't a certainty.
Other economists, however, have said the precipitous drop in global oil prices, from which Russia's budget derives a substantial chunk of revenue, has had a greater impact on Moscow's behavior than sanctions.
With reporting by Reuters
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· · ·
(CNN)Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign announced a $10 billion plan to "combat America's deadly epidemic of drug and alcohol addiction" on Wednesday.
The plan looks to boost treatment and recovery programs, ensure that first responders have drugs needed to stop opioid overdoses from becoming fatal and urges states to focus more on treatment than incarceration.
"It's time we recognize that there are gaps in our health care system that allow too many to go without care — and invest in treatment," Clinton wrote in an oped about the plan. "It's time we recognize that our state and federal prisons, where 65 percent of inmates meet medical criteria for substance use disorders, are no substitute for proper treatment — and reform our criminal justice system."
The bulk of Clinton's plan will focus on $7.5 billion in new federal-state partnerships to boost local treatment programs. According to the plan, if a state proposes "a comprehensive plan" for dealing with addiction, that state can receive $4 of federal support for every $1 they put up.
Clinton's plan would also direct state Attorneys General to prioritize "treatment over incarceration for nonviolent and low-level federal drug offenders." Clinton's campaign argues that the savings to the criminal justice system would be used -- in part -- to pay for the plan.
Substance abuse has been an unexpected focus to Clinton's presidential campaign. The Democratic front-runner regularly tells audiences that she didn't understand the problem until her first trip to New Hampshire in May, where people repeatedly asked her how she would address drug treatment.
The debate over drug treatment is not happening solely on the Democratic side of 2016, however. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has been outspoken on drug treatment and released a new New Hampshire-focused video Wednesday about the issue.
7518 14
by Elliott Abrams
September 2, 2015
September 2, 2015
Most Americans are aware of the aggressive Russian actions in recent years in Ukraine (seizing Crimea and participating in efforts to destabilize the rest of the country) and Eastern Europe. What is less well known is Putin’s effort in Syria.
A story by Michael Weiss in The Daily Beast tells us what is actually happening, as its title conveys: “Russia Puts Boots on the Ground in Syria.” Not only is Russia arming the Assad regime, but there is now evidence that Russians are on the ground with Assad’s forces actually operating the equipment. Weiss refers to “compelling evidence that Russians have embedded with the Syrian military.” Assadrecently told Hezbollah’s TV station that “We have strong confidence in the Russians, as they have proven throughout this crisis, for four years, that they are sincere and transparent in their relationship with us,” and he appears to be right.
Russia’s involvement is growing very fast. Alex Fishman, one of Israel’s best military correspondents, reported this on August 31:
Russian fighter pilots are expected to begin arriving in Syria in the coming days, and will fly their Russian air force fighter jets and attack helicopters against ISIS and rebel-aligned targets within the failing state. According to Western diplomats, a Russian expeditionary force has already arrived in Syria and set up camp in an Assad-controlled airbase. The base is said to be in area surrounding Damascus, and will serve, for all intents and purposes, as a Russian forward operating base.In the coming weeks thousands of Russian military personnel are set to touch down in Syria, including advisors, instructors, logistics personnel, technical personnel, members of the aerial protection division, and the pilots who will operate the aircraft. Past reports have stated that the Russians were in talks to sell the Syrians a package of MiG-29 fighter jets, and Yak-130 trainer jets (which can also serve as attack aircraft.) The current makeup of the expeditionary force is still unknown, but there is no doubt that Russian pilots flying combat missions in Syrian skies will definitely change the existing dynamics in the Middle East.
This contradicts the happy talk we’ve long had from the Obama administration, suggesting that Russia could be a partner in Syria and part of the solution there. Instead, Putin appears to be doubling down on his support for Assad. Meanwhile, the United States is insisting that rebel groups it works with and arms must not attack the regime, despite its endless war crimes and attacks on civilians; they must attack only ISIS instead. What the administration still refuses to acknowledge is that the Assad regime is a jihadi manufacturing device, whose brutality largely explains the growth of ISIS. As long as Assad is in place ISIS will grow; Assad’s attacks on Syria’s Sunni population mean that he serves as a recruiter for ISIS. Because our central goal is the defeat of ISIS we must work to remove the Assad regime, but its survival still seems to be the central Russian goal– as it is the central Iranian goal.
So American and Russian goals in Syria could not be more at odds. Putin’s actions to expand Russia’s military support for Assad suggest that he understands this. The question is when we will recognize that fact.
CFR seeks to foster civil and informed discussion of foreign policy issues. Opinions expressed on CFR blogs are solely those of the author or commenter, not of CFR, which takes no institutional positions. All comments must abide by CFR's guidelines and will be moderated prior to posting.
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Many nations, including Russia, are competing to gain a foothold in the changing Arctic.
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In an exclusive interview with Sky, Ukraine's Petro Poroshenko accuses Russia of extending its "campaign of destabilisation".
By Sam Kiley, Foreign Affairs Editor, in Kiev
Ukraine's president has laid the blame for the murder of three policemen during a right wing demonstration on Monday firmly at the doors of the Kremlin, accusing Russia of extending its "campaign of destabilisation".
Three people died after grenades were thrown during clashes between nationalists and police outside Ukraine's parliament.
It followed a vote to give more powers to the regions, including separatist regions in the east.
Grenades were thrown during the protests on Monday
Petro Poroshenko, a billionaire businessman who was elected in May last year at the height of a Russian campaign to seize the Crimea and back rebels in the east of Ukraine, told Sky News the killings were inspired by Moscow.
In an exclusive and wide-ranging interview, he insisted that his reform programme to bring his country closer to European Union norms and requirements was on track, notably tackling corruption and the planned lifting of immunity for politicians - including himself.
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Part of his business empire was built on confectionery - as a result he is known as the "chocolate king".
But it is the tsar-like leadership of Vladimir Putin that he says is a threat not only to his country but to wider European and global security - pointing out that even the UK regularly has Russian military aircraft testing its air space.
He said that Russia had become "unpredictable" but he did not feel vulnerable, even though "this is one of the most difficult presidencies in the whole world".
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One need not be a techie to understand how to use a sock puppet. Direction No. 1: Open sock. Direction No. 2: Insert hand. And that’s it — you have control.
But on Wikipedia, sock puppets have a very different — and very negative — connotation. So-called “sock-puppet accounts” are those used by people paid to edit subjects’ Wikipedia pages to present them in a more favorable light — a strict no-no among those behind the online encyclopedia run by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation and seen as a global community resource.
Now, Wikimedia has targeted sock puppets in an Internet sting of sorts, deleting 381 English Wikipedia user accounts for what it called “black hat editing”: “the practice of accepting or charging money to promote external interests on Wikipedia without revealing their affiliation, in violation of Wikimedia’s Terms of Use.”
“Neutrality is key to ensuring Wikipedia’s quality,” the foundation said in a statement. “Although it does not happen often, undisclosed paid advocacy editing may represent a serious conflict of interest and could compromise the quality of content on Wikipedia.”
The effort, nicknamed operation “Orangemoody” after the first sock-puppet account found in the investigation, nixed a diverse array of allegedly compromised articles on the site. A list of more than 250 posted on Wikipedia — that, it should be noted, can be edited by anyone — included, among many others, pages that appeared to be about Bitcoin casinos, a cleaning service, a cooking school and a songwriter from Brooklyn.
“Readers trust Wikipedia to offer accurate, neutral content, and undisclosed paid advocacy editing violates that trust,” Wikimedia noted in its statement. “Sadly, it also deceives the subjects of articles, who may simply be unaware that they are in violation of the spirit and policies of Wikipedia. No one should ever have to pay to create or maintain a Wikipedia article.”
The Wikipedia page about Operation Orangemoody also urged empathy. In theory, an evildoer could extort the subject of a page, threatening to alter its contents in a scam Gizmodo likened to “Godfather”-style organized crime: “kind of like how you can pay off the mafia so that you don’t get robbed.
“Please be kind to the article subjects,” the Orangemoody Wikipedia page noted. “They too are victims in this situation.”
This is not the first time Wikimedia has attempted to squash editorial polish-for-pay. Last year, the organization announced that paid editors — even, possibly, those “employed by a gallery, library, archive, museum … or similar institution that may pay employees to make good faith contributions in your area of expertise and not about your institution” —would have to announce themselves.
“Being deceptive in your editing by using sockpuppets or misrepresenting your affiliation with a company is against Wikipedia policy and is prohibited by our Terms of Use,” Sue Gardner, Wikimedia’s executive director, said in 2013. “We urge companies to conduct themselves ethically, to be transparent about what they’re doing on Wikipedia, and to adhere to all site policies and practices.”
Justin Wm. Moyer is a reporter for The Washington Post's Morning Mix. Follow him on Twitter:
@justinwmmoyer
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President Obama called the widow of the Texas sheriff’s deputy who was fatally shot last week to offer his condolences and condemn any violence against police officers.
Darren Goforth, a sheriff’s deputy in Harris County, was shot and killed Friday at a gas station in suburban Houston. Harris County Sheriff Ron Hickman called the shooting “an unprovoked, execution-style killing of a police officer,” saying that the gunman came up behind Goforth as he pumped gas and opened fire.
Obama called Kathleen Goforth, the deputy’s widow, on Monday while he was traveling to Alaska, according to a statement from the White House. During the call, Obama said he offered her prayers on the loss of “a veteran law enforcement officer who was contemptibly shot and killed.”
He went on to decry any violence against officers, saying that Americans must stand up for the safety of police across the country.
“I also promised that I would continue to highlight the uncommon bravery that police officers show in our communities every single day,” Obama said in the statement. “They put their lives on the line for our safety. Targeting police officers is completely unacceptable — an affront to civilized society.”
After the shooting, authorities in Harris County linked Goforth’s death to ongoing protest movement criticizing how police officers use lethal force. Hickman, the sheriff, said the “rhetoric had gotten out of control,” although he later said police were “still searching to find out if that’s actually a motive.”
Fewer police officers are shot and killed each year, statistics show, but as the protest movement has surged over the past year, current and former law enforcement officials have said they are concerned the heightened atmosphere presents an increased danger to police. In quickly tying the shooting to the protests, Hickman tapped into a larger sentiment among police officers worried about the tense atmosphere.
Over the weekend, authorities arrested Shannon J. Miles, 30, and charged him with capital murder. Miles was arraigned Monday. Devon Anderson, the Harris County district attorney, said Miles “unloaded [his] entire pistol into Deputy Goforth” during the shooting.
Goforth’s funeral has been scheduled for Friday morning at a Baptist church in Houston.
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Mark Berman is a reporter on the National staff. He runs Post Nation, a destination for breaking news and developing stories from around the country.
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Trust between police and public is falling as more questionable use of lethal force and brutal treatment of suspects hits the news. Officers are also concerned over the ferocity of attacks against them. August’s death toll paints a worrying picture.
No US government agency tracks the number of civilians killed by the police. Two mainstream newspapers, the Washington Post and the Guardian, have kept records of police shootings in 2015 putting them at 82 and 99 in August respectively. The “Killed by Police” project, launched in May 2013, chronicles all civilian deaths by police officers, regardless of the method. Their numbers stand at 103 civilian deaths this month, and 791 so far in 2015.
While that number is slightly lower than 125 deaths recorded in July, the number of police killed by suspects has risen sharply – from one in July to six in August, according to a nonprofit that tracks officers killed in the line of duty.
Black Lives Matter
Three ‘officer-involved shootings’ over the past month attracted national attention. In the early morning hours of August 7, an officer from the Arlington, Texas police force shot and killed Christian Taylor, 19. Six officers responded to a burglary call at a car dealership around 1 am, and found Taylor inside. Security footage shows the Angelo State University football player vandalizing cars. One officer, who was still in training, confronted Taylor by himself and fatally shot the teen. Identified as Brad Miller, 49, he was fired by the Arlington PD for “questionable decision-making.”
Two days later, during the memorial march for Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, another young African-American was shot by police. Tyrone Harris Jr, 18 was involved in a gunfight with police officers, and was taken to a hospital in critical condition. Surveillance footage from the shopping center where the incident took place shows Harris holding a gun. Harris’s family maintains his innocence.
On August 19, police in nearby St. Louis raided a suspected drug house. Two men fled the scene, and the officers claim one of them pointed a gun at them. They fatally shot Mansur Ball-Bey, 18, while the other man escaped. The autopsy found that Ball-Bey was hit from behind, throwing suspicion on the official account of the shooting. Three illegal guns and crack cocaine were found at the house.
A surrendering suspect and an innocent bystander
Less known are the cases of a San Antonio man killed with his hands up, and an innocent bystander mowed down by an undercover officer in New York.
Gilbert Flores, 41, was killed on August 28. While the initial police report claims that he was resisting arrest after a domestic disturbance call, a video recording from a bystander shows Flores with his hands up before he is shot. Bexar County judge Nelson Wolff said the video was “very shocking and looks very bad,” while another county official called it “disturbing.” Officers Vasquez and Sanchez were placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation.
Gilbert Flores, 41, was killed on August 28. While the initial police report claims that he was resisting arrest after a domestic disturbance call, a video recording from a bystander shows Flores with his hands up before he is shot. Bexar County judge Nelson Wolff said the video was “very shocking and looks very bad,” while another county official called it “disturbing.” Officers Vasquez and Sanchez were placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation.
An undercover officer with the New York Police Department opened fire on a robbery suspect on August 29, seriously injuring the man – and killing Felix Kumi, 61, an innocent bystander. The officer fired anywhere between 11 and 21 shots, hitting cars, shop windows and the front door of a nearby house. The NYPD is now reviewing the tactics used by the undercover officer. Police Commissioner Bill Bratton has issued condolences to the family of Kumi, whom he described as “blameless.”
No crutches - or singing - allowed
“These are my crutches. I use these to walk,” a homeless black man tried to explain, as a dozen San Francisco Police Department officers pinned him to the ground on August 4. They were responding to a call about a suspicious man waving some ‘sticks’ around.
An Allentown, Pennsylvania resident also had a painful encounter with the law on August 14, after singing a Beach Boys song outside a pricey restaurant. A video filmed by a bystander shows Jim Ochse, 61, getting wrestled to the ground by a police officer after insisting he had a right to sing in public.
Cop lives matter, too
Police deaths in line of duty have been tracked since 1996 by a nonprofit called Officer Down Memorial Page (ODMP). According to their database, fourteen law enforcement officers died in August: two from heart attacks, six in traffic accidents, and six from gunfire.
On August 1, Officer Sean M. Bolton of Memphis, Tennessee was killed when he interrupted a drug deal. Four days later, Officer Thomas LaValley of Shreveport, Louisiana was killed by a murder suspect he was pursuing.
Deputy Sheriff Carl Howell, of Carson City, Nevada, was responding to a domestic disturbance call on August 15 when he was shot and killed by a suspect. A domestic disturbance call also turned out deadly for Officer Henry Nelson of Sunset, Louisiana, who was shot by a suspect on August 26.
On August 24, Louisiana state trooper Steven Vincent approached a vehicle stuck in a ditch, when the motorist shot him with a sawed-off shotgun. Passing motorists then arrested the man. Vincent passed away from his injuries the following day.
The incident that received the most attention was the “unprovoked execution-style killing” of Deputy Darren Goforth on August 28. Surveillance cameras at a Houston gas station recorded a suspect calmly approaching Goforth from behind, and firing at the deputy as he was pumping gas. Harris County Sheriff Ron Hickman blamed“rhetoric” from the Black Lives Matter movement for inspiring“calculated, cold-blooded assassination of police officers.” The suspect, Shannon Miles, is African-American.
Slow to respond and second-guessing
Since the August 2014 events in Ferguson, localities in 24 US states have introduced some kind of police reform proposal. Police departments around the country are implementing reforms such as sensitivity training, non-lethal tactics and community outreach.
Not all officers are happy with the changes. In Dallas, Texas, where police response times are the slowest since 2007, the union blamed the management’s second-guessing of officers for low morale.
“Response times are up, violent crime is up, and officers are fed up,” Dallas Police Association president Ron Pinkston told local media on August 24. “The motivation is a little lacking. I think it’s just the fear of doing the right thing and that they are going to get disciplined for doing that.”
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MILWAUKEE — Cities across the nation are seeing a startling rise in murders after years of declines, and few places have witnessed a shift as precipitous as this city. With the summer not yet over, 104 people have been killed this year — after 86 homicides in all of 2014.
More than 30 other cities have also reported increases in violence from a year ago. In New Orleans, 120 people had been killed by late August, compared with 98 during the same period a year earlier. In Baltimore, homicides had hit 215, up from 138 at the same point in 2014. In Washington, the toll was 105, compared with 73 people a year ago. And in St. Louis, 136 people had been killed this year, a 60 percent rise from the 85 murders the city had by the same time last year.
Law enforcement experts say disparate factors are at play in different cities, though no one is claiming to know for sure why murder rates are climbing. Some officials say intense national scrutiny of the use of force by the police has made officers less aggressive and emboldened criminals, though many experts dispute that theory.
Rivalries among organized street gangs, often over drug turf, and the availability of guns are cited as major factors in some cities, including Chicago. But more commonly, many top police officials say they are seeing a growing willingness among disenchanted young men in poor neighborhoods to use violence to settle ordinary disputes.
“Maintaining one’s status and credibility and honor, if you will, within that peer community is literally a matter of life and death,” Milwaukee’s police chief, Edward A. Flynn, said. “And that’s coupled with a very harsh reality, which is the mental calculation of those who live in that strata that it is more dangerous to get caught without their gun than to get caught with their gun.”
The results have often been devastating. Tamiko Holmes, a mother of five, has lost two of her nearly grown children in apparently unrelated shootings in the last eight months. In January, a daughter, 20, was shot to death during a robbery at a birthday party at a Days Inn. Six months later, the authorities called again: Her only son, 19, had been shot in the head in a car — a killing for which the police are still searching for a motive and a suspect.
A sampling of cities where the number of murders so far this year is outpacing the same period last year.
Milwaukee
St. Louis
Baltimore
Washington
New Orleans
Chicago
Kansas City, Mo.
Dallas
New York
Philadelphia
59
85
138
73
98
244
45
71
190
165
104
136
215
105
120
294
54
83
208
171
76
60
56
44
22
20
20
17
9
4
Milwaukee
St. Louis
Baltimore
Washington
New Orleans
Chicago
Kansas City, Mo.
Dallas
New York
Philadelphia
59
85
138
73
98
244
45
71
190
165
104
136
215
105
120
294
54
83
208
171
76
60
56
44
22
20
20
17
9
4
Ms. Holmes said she recently persuaded her remaining teenage daughters to move away from Milwaukee with her, but not before one of them, 17, was wounded in a shooting while riding in a car.
“The violence was nothing like this before,” said Ms. Holmes, 38, who grew up in Milwaukee. “What’s changed is the streets and the laws and the parents. It’s become a mess and a struggle.”
Urban bloodshed — as well as the overall violent crime rate — remains far below the peaks of the late 1980s and early ’90s, and criminologists say it is too early to draw broad conclusions from the recent numbers. In some cities, including Cincinnati, Los Angeles and Newark, homicides remain at a relatively steady rate this year.
Yet with at least 35 of the nation’s cities reporting increases in murders, violent crimes or both, according to a recent survey, the spikes are raising alarm among urban police chiefs. The uptick prompted an urgent summit meeting in August of more than 70 officials from some of the nation’s largest cities. A Justice Department initiative is scheduled to address the rising homicide rates as part of a conference in September.
“If you have that many cities that are having that kind of experiences, we ought to worry about it,” said Darrel W. Stephens, executive director of the Major Cities Chiefs Association and a former police chief in Charlotte, N.C.
In New York and Chicago, homicides have risen from the 2014 numbers, which officials said were the lowest in decades.
In New York, killings have increased by about 9 percent, to 208 through mid-August from 190 a year earlier. Homicides in Chicago are up about 20 percent over the same period a year ago.
The police superintendent in Chicago, Garry McCarthy, said he thought an abundance of guns was a major factor in his city’s homicide spike. Even as officials in both parties are calling for reducing the prison population, he insisted that gun offenders should face stiffer penalties.
“Across the country, we’ve all found it’s not the individual who never committed a crime before suddenly killing somebody,” Mr. McCarthy said on Monday. “It’s the repeat offenders. It’s the same people over and over again.”
Among some experts and rank-and-file officers, the notion that less aggressive policing has emboldened criminals — known as the “Ferguson effect” in some circles — is a popular theory for the uptick in violence.
“The equilibrium has changed between police and offenders,” said Alfred Blumstein, a professor and a criminologist at Heinz College, Carnegie Mellon University.
Others doubt the theory or say data has not emerged to prove it. Richard Rosenfeld, a criminologist from the University of Missouri-St. Louis, said homicides in St. Louis, for instance, had already begun an arc upward in 2014 before a white police officer killed an unarmed teenager, Michael Brown, in nearby Ferguson. That data, he said, suggests that other factors may be in play.
Less debated is the sense among police officials that more young people are settling their disputes, including one started on Facebook, with guns.
Capt. Mike Sack, a homicide commander in the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, cited killings there that had grown out of arguments over girlfriends, food and even characters on a TV show. “Most remarkable is that individuals get so upset over things that I or others might consider petty but resort to such a level of violence,” he said.
In New Orleans, Michael S. Harrison, the police superintendent, said the city’s rise in homicides did not appear to reflect any increase in gang violence or robberies of strangers, but rather involved killings inside homes and cars by people who know their victims — particularly difficult crimes to predict or prevent.
“That is not a situation that can be solved by policing,” Superintendent Harrison said. “It speaks to a culture of violence deeply ingrained into a community — a segment of the population where people are resolving their problems in a violent way.”
In New York, there have been a larger number of gang-related killings, Stephen Davis, the department’s top spokesman, said. But he also said many homicides remained unexplained, the result of disputes with murky origins. “There are a lot of murders that happen in the spur of the moment,” Mr. Davis said.
In eight years as police chief in Milwaukee, Chief Flynn seemed to have brought the pace of murders under control. After a high of 165 in 1991, killings had dipped significantly.
“We thought we were having an impact,” Chief Flynn said. But as murders have multiplied in recent months — a death in a suspected drug house, a roommate beaten to death, a teenager shot at a kitchen table — Chief Flynn sounds far less certain. “I don’t even want to hazard what pace we’re on right now.”
Mayor Tom Barrett of Milwaukee, who is up for re-election early next year, receives text messages about every homicide; they come faster now, every few days. The issue already is taking center stage in the race: Some of Mr. Barrett’s critics say he is not doing enough to stop crime, while citing what they consider low investment in the city’s African-American neighborhoods and mistreatment of black residents by the police.
“I have to find a way for these young kids to understand that they have a stake in society,” said Mr. Barrett, who has met with pastors, community leaders and others to discuss the killings.
In Milwaukee, most of the victims and the suspects in their killings are black men under 30, police data shows, who come from neighborhoods where foreclosures, joblessness and poverty are also high. Most involve guns and people — both victims and suspects — who have been arrested before. The most common motive in the slayings was not robbery or gang rivalry but an argument, according to the data.
On July 3, as an annual fireworks display along Lake Michigan ended, Tariq Akbar, 14, was shot in the back of the head while he was leaving the crowded celebration to meet his mother, who was parked not far away.
“The police were right there — not even 50 feet away,” his mother, Arifah Akbar, said. “This is when you know how bad Milwaukee has gotten.”
The police said the shooting had stemmed from a dispute on social media. A 15-year-old has been charged.
Chief Flynn was among those close enough to hear the shots that night. He said that dozens of officers were near the lake, but that was not enough to deter the shooting.
As in places like Ferguson and Baltimore, tensions over race and police conduct have risen in Milwaukee, where the population is 40 percent black, compared with 6 percent statewide. Demonstrators took to Milwaukee’s streets after the death of Dontre D. Hamilton, 31, a black man who was shot in a downtown park last year by a white police officer. Mr. Flynn fired the officer, but local prosecutors did not file charges against him. Witnesses said Mr. Hamilton, who had been sleeping before the encounter, had grabbed the officer’s baton and hit him or was trying to do so.
Chief Flynn said that his officers were responding to crimes as they always have, but that they were making fewer traffic stops and conducting fewer field interviews, a fact he attributed to “free-floating anxiety” among officers around the nation.
“This is a job that requires judgment, but it requires judgment being exercised under pressure in ambiguous circumstances,” he said. “In that context you are going to sometimes, trying to do the right thing, still make the wrong decision.”
Along the streets on this city’s North Side, residents said the problems reached far deeper than guns or fights on Facebook.
“Everybody’s struggling out here, trying to stay afloat, with no jobs, no opportunities,” said Bethann Maclin, whose 13-year-old daughter stays mostly inside these days. “The violence won’t end. Where do you start?”
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Official figures from across the United States reveal a startling increase in the number of murders in several major cities this year -- and officials are at a loss to pinpoint the exact reasons why.
The New York Times says more than 30 cities across the nation have reported a sharp increase in homicides so far this year, compared to the same time period in 2014. The death toll in the nation's capital, Washington, D.C., stands at 105 people, compared with 73 people a year ago. In nearby Baltimore, Maryland, a staggering 215 people have killed so far in 2015, far above the 138 people at the same point in 2014. Triple-digit homicide rates have also been reported in such cities as Milwaukee, Wisconsin, St. Louis, Missouri, and New Orleans, Louisiana.
The unexpected rise in homicides in 2015 after several years of steady declines has left both politicians and law enforcement officials searching for both a cause and a solution. Some say police officers have become less aggressive in the face of national protests over a series of deaths of unarmed African Americans while in police custody. But the Times reports many high-ranking police officials are seeing a growing willingness among disenchanted young men in poor neighborhoods to use violence settle ordinary disputes.
More than 70 officials from some of the largest cities in the U.S. held an emergency summit last month to address the issue.
The Times notes that the murder and overall violent crime rates remain far below the peaks seen in the late 1980 and early 90.
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