Here is how National Public Radio reported those statistics on D.C. crime on the one-year anniversary of President Trump ordering the National Guard to patrol the National Capital.
“Multiple studies have since found that the National Guard presence in D.C. has had no effect on violent crime, although there has been a decrease in opportunistic crimes like petty theft and vehicle break-ins.”
That summary arrives after NPR spends nine full paragraphs burying the lede, only to lie about what the lede is anyway.
When I read that [Aside: NPR had the gall to send me a solicitation for a contribution via email, signed by the NPR host who blackballed me as its ethics commentator for telling the truth about late-hit sexual harassment complaints, because I “seemed to be defending Donald Trump.] this morning I was genuinely puzzled. When I surfed past Fox News last night, Laura Ingraham was declaring that the statistics proved that Trump’s use of the National Guard was prudent and has been a great success. Two completely divergent news reports. This is why our journalism has become untrustworthy and dangerous. This is why civil discourse is nearly impossible, with citizens operating under competing distortions of reality.
And this is why President Trump was and is right to call our news media “enemies of the people.”
However, NPR’s distortion and deceit qualifies the network as a media Ethics Villain and an Ethics Corrupter. Note the chart above from the D.C. police site. A 32% decrease in murder is not “no effect” on violent crime. That isn’t just spin or bias, that’s a lie. NPR also plays language games, because that’s the Left’s specialty. “Opportunistic crimes like petty theft and vehicle break-ins” is the euphemism this nauseating excuse for a news organization uses to describe the following crimes that have decreased significantly in the past year in the District:
- Robbery
- Arson
- Motor vehicle theft
- Theft
- Property crime
Ethics Alarms 
I emphatically do not think that DC should be a state, but I will say that the population argument seems incorrect as the “puny” population of DC is greater than the population of my whole state. Go Wyo!
Now SB, be fair. I also mentioned its puny size Small population + small area = City, not State.
“If D.C. with it’s puny population of about 670,000 should be a state, surely Manhattan qualifies, with about a million more residents.”
Counterpoint – Manhattan should be federalized and lose its representation also.
The purpose of DC not being a state nor being part of a state, per the Founding Fathers:
To that point, given that the space taken up by people who fall in that category has spread far beyond the boundaries of a 10 mile square, Washington D.C. should, first, reclaim the Virginia part of the square, and then, be expanded an additional 10 (or more) miles in each direction.
This forms a minimum of a 30 mile x 30 mile square, encompassing a large number of people for whom “expanding the government in spite of the common good” is too much of a conflict of interest to allow them representation. Though, while expanding D.C. with otherwise all the same Constitutional restrictions, we can carve out an exception for ethicists that live on cul-de-sacs bordering that share parking lots with churches.
We’ve gone from “No taxation without representation” to broad representation of all kinds of classes of people who not only aren’t taxed federally, they’re supported by the system.
They’re powerful enough that Romney mentioning the 47% torpedoed his campaign in the same way as Hillary’s “Deplorables”.
It’s a strange world.
Of course then there was whoever wrote that each of DC’s neighborhoods should be made a state to ensure Democrat dominance.
My TDS-suffering sister visited DC last year and assured us upon returning that she had no problem at all. Without, of course, acknowledging that the National Guard presence might have made a difference.
It’s as if they don’t want to see the difference or that they want to deny that there is a difference.
I suspect if she had been mugged or robbed, she would have blamed Orange Man Super Terrible Nazi Evil Bad for her situation and not local law enforcement.
jvb
Washington, remarkably early in the republic, was such a repulsive cultural region that the Founding Fathers even made sure it was legally its own entity in the Constitution. No one has wanted it since. The people here are uninspiring automatons for the Federal Government and share the unique quality of not being able to hack it in a real job. Crime is rampant – if you visit historic landmarks, odds are you will be knifed in the back, robbed at gun point or contract a venereal disease – though once you leave the halls of Congress your safety increases significantly.
Actually, if you look at the chart, Robbery is one of the components in “Violent Crime – Total”. Saying they included it in their petty theft total is incorrect. They seemed to be focusing on the category totals rather than individual subcategories, at least for violent crimes. The violent crime total (the sum of the previous row numbers) was very slightly up, within an error range I’d be comfortable calling unchanged. ±5% seems like a reasonable range to me.
“Petty theft” is indefensible. Crimes of opportunity wasn’t a category in the numbers. They can be significant, and the change in auto theft alone would matter. It’s a terribly way to try and dismiss the improvements. I think “Theft (Other)” is far too broad a category. Using a broad category and comparing it to subgroups is dishonest.
Looking at totals rather than details or vice versa, instead of assessing both, it a common misuse of statistics. I’d say Fox has the better take in this instance. Unchanged or better is a net improvement. Only one subcategory saw any significant increase.
Homicides and robbery being down is important, but so is the significant increase in assault with a deadly weapon. It seems plausible that the greater presence of law enforcement could have improved the ability emergency services to show up and save lives, moving some number that would have been homicides to the assault row. It’s also plausible that a large number of events that would have been previously unreported are now showing in the assault row, meaning it’s not showing increased crimes just increased enforcement. We don’t really have enough information to do more than speculate.
You can’t prove that it is the presence of the National Guard troops that is responsible for the drop in murders. After all, it might be the deportations of illegal immigrants!
By the way, I have had pleasant conversations with the Guard patrolling DC. I found them to be somewhat bemused by the sense of security, prosperity, and beauty of our Capitol city. I wonder what tales they’ll tell when they go back to “flyover country”.
Once again, I have nothing intelligent to add. Even though my had is still a little lopsided, I must make a living, so a few days abroad is par for the course. Finally, back on native soil, I see the usual clever comments that delight the young, old, and cadavers alike – the latter particularly appreciate Gordon and West (no, not “The Wild Wild West”… the cartoon). A pity I wasn’t stateside to witness such genius in real time! But, as a first tier festoon designer, I attend the annual festooneries in the Agrafa Mountains, where my knowledge of the curved drape, tapered tails, and binding ribbons, is legendary. Once there, however, while disentangling myself from a supple servitóra and an ill-placed string of festoon lights, I received an urgent wire from a Mr. Yarret P. Lope, the illustrious Prefect of Motobu, begging my attendance at an urgent meeting in Cape Hedo on the northeastern tip of Okinawa, concerning unanticipated changes in the Central Ryukyu Arc. In a nutshell, the Philippine Sea Plate had pushed further underneath the Eurasian Plate than local predictions allowed. Given my preeminence in everything festoon, I was asked (on a strictly hourly basis) to clear the plates and polish the silverware. However, while aiming for Howland Island, the engine of my Cessna 172 Skyhawk began to sputter. When finally coaxed down from the tallest tree on Nikumaroro by the captain of a fishing crew, with his assurances that the coconut crabs had given up the chase and that my mother-in-law was nowhere lurking in the parking lot, I shook his hand, hugged the boatswain, kissed the cook (by then we had reached Malta), and swore with my right hand in the air and my left on a gasping mahi-mahi that henceforward it’s strictly swags, ribbon ties, and pendants…
That you, Joseph Robinette?
Fred Noonan.
Heh!
PWS