Chaos and Crime: Former NYPD Chief Says “I’ve Never Seen it So Bad”

Warning that a push against police and law enforcement would result in chaos and crime across America, former NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton said this week that he’s “never seen it so bad in terms of the potential for continued disarray.” Bratton noted that he was around New York and Los Angeles in the days before crime rates plummeted in the 1990s, and it was not a time to which America should want to return. Nonetheless, he said, that is exactly what we’re inviting by waging a political war against the very police that keep our cities safe.

“We are a country – in cities, all of our cities – whose social norms of behavior and criminal justice system are in extreme disarray, and it’s getting worse, not better,” Bratton said in an interview with 770 AM in New York. “Things are tilting incredibly fast to the far left.

“We are rapidly moving toward a repeat of the 70s and 80s that led to our worst crime year in our history in our country, 1990,” Bratton continued. “In city after city, shootings, murderers, violence, and other forms of crime are on the increase. And nobody’s paying any attention to it. It’s amazing. They will start paying attention to it farther into the summer because there’s no sign that it’s going to abate.”

Bratton said it’s heartbreaking to watch the cultural and security progress of the last 30 years go up in smoke.

“It’s an Etch-a-Sketch moment,” he said. “It’s as if all of a sudden all of the good has been erased, and all we’re focusing on is the bad.”

Bratton didn’t deny that there were elements within the police that could use reform, and he certainly didn’t deny that there are bad cops that need to go. However, he said, we are on the path to destruction if he make the grave error of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

“It’s understandable that they are demoralized; unfortunately they’re going to get even more demoralized if you look at what’s going on in the criminal justice reform movement,” he said. “It’s a great political hashtag, isn’t it: ‘Defund the police.’ Well, as we get into the hot summer, and they defund the police, and reduce police ranks around the country, we’ll see a repeat of the 70s.

“Now it’s a matter of shifting the blame for things that have gone wrong, and giving no praise whatsoever for things that have gone right,” Bratton continued. “So, New York is heading into some very, very troubled waters. The country is.”

The problem is, we’re starting to believe that the instigators of this madness – Black Lives Matter, to be specific – know exactly what kind of chaos they’re inviting. We’re not sure if the Democratic leadership has woken up to it yet, but whether they’re useful idiots or willing collaborators, they’ll bear the responsibility just the same.

Of course, if this gets as bad as its potential, laying blame may be the last of anyone’s concern.