Ernest Evans Talks Kansas City Crime

DEar Mr. Cozad:
As always, I enjoyed you on the latest "Ruckus"!! A few thoughts on our new Chief of Police and the KCMO crime situation.  Police officers in modern America are required on a daily basis to do a most politically incorrect thing--use violence against racial minorities. And, as any cop can tell you, there is no such thing as a nice takedown--they all look terrible on TV. Given that ugly reality, if cops are to have the morale and motivation to fight black-on-black crime they have to be given firm assurances that if accused of racist misconduct they will get due process. When that is not the case, out of sheer self-survival the cops abandon their duties in  minority neighborhoods and crime in these neighborhoods explodes--witness NYC after the Tawana Brawley case in 1987-1993, Prince George's County, Maryland since the Stephanie Mohr case in 2001, Cincinnati in the three years following the race riots in the spring of 2001, and Oakland today in the aftermath of the riots in Nov. 2010.

In the case of KCMO's black neighborhoods crime exploded after the Police Board meetings in Jan. 2008 and April 2008 on the Salva tragedy--Board members Karl Zobrist, Mark Thompson and Terry Brady spent those entire hearings falling all over themselves to pander to the city's community leaders out of terror of a convention boycott; the cops got the message and out of self-survival abandoned serious efforts to fight crime in the black neighborhoods of kcmo.  And, remember, for the cop on the beat it is not just the threat of dismissal that they have to worry about--there is also the danger of being brought up on federal civil rights charges.




This is where we come to Chief Forte.  As several people said on "Ruckus", he has the opportunity, if he chooses to take it, to turn the crime situation in the black neighborhoods of the city totally around by using the fact that he is a black man to tell the cops on the beat that he will ensure they get due procress because he is in a position to tell the community leaders to go take a hike. Only time will tell--and, it must be noted, that there is an opposite, and quite alarming scenario--the NYC under Dinkins scenario.  Dinkins came in in 1989 in the aftermath of the Tawana Brawley incident, and immediately installed a very politically correct Police Commissioner and appointed lots of politically correct people to the city's Civilian Review Board. Violence in the black neighborhoods of NYC reached epidemic levels--by 1992 there were 2250 homicides a year in NYC, most of them in black neighborhoods. (In 2010 there were about 500 homicides in NYC.)

So, the "ball" as far as violence in the black neighborhoods of KCMO is firmly in the court of Mayor James and Chief Forte--they have the potential to either end this ongoing explosion or to cause it to massively escalate. Take care--May God bless you as you go about your duties.

Sincerely, Respectfully and In Christ, Ernest Evans