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A white expert believes the Black Lives Matter movement and defund the police efforts are causing the number of African American murders to increase, Daily Mail reports.
Hannah Meyer of the Manhattan Institute blamed "defund the police messaging" for the spike in Black murders from 2019 to 2020. Meyer told Fox News that Black Lives Matter ideology scared off cops from policing in high crime areas, where lives were lost.
In 2020, Black people were murdered 32 percent more than the year prior — there were 9,941 African American homicide victims in 2020, compared to 7,484 in 2019, according to a FBI crime report.
The white murder rate also increased 21 percent from 2019 to 2020. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Meyer believes the root of the increase comes from the George Floyd protests.
According to Meyer, the alarming amount of murders across all demographics started after Michael Brown and Freddy Grey were killed by police — She said that the murder of George Floyd only accelerated the issue.
"Certainly, the protests and riots mid-2020 followed a pattern of spiking violence that we've seen following past viral police incidents, such as the deaths of Michael Brown and Freddie Gray," Meyer told Fox News. "This pattern has been termed the 'Ferguson Effect': police pull back while violent crime spikes precipitously."
Meyer also claimed that criminal justice reform is killing more Americans.
"In NY, statewide changes to the bail laws that went into effect in 2020 prevented judges from holding a huge range of defendants in jail pre-trial and effectively prevented judges from considering dangerousness in the decision to set bail." She added, "The rate of felony among defendants out of jail pre-trial who prior to 'bail reform' has been estimated at 43 percent. That is a significant number."
However, other experts said the heightening murder rate stems from the increase in gun sales.
Professor Nicole Kravitz-Wirtz said in a statement, "These are particularly high-stress times. When you add a firearm into those situations it adds particularly fatal risk."
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