(CBS) — Police are calling it the “YouTube effect”: Widespread use of cellphone video may be making cops less aggressive on the streets.

Mayor Emanuel says it’s partly to blame for the rise in Chicago crime.

CBS 2’s Derrick Blakley reports.

Over the weekend, Emanuel was quoted as saying, “We have allowed our police department to get fetal and it is having a direct consequence.”

Emanuel says the riots in Ferguson, Mo. and Baltimore — combined with citizens regularly recording police on cellphones — has led to a chilling effect.

“Officers themselves were telling me about how the news over the last 15 months have impacted their instincts — do they stop, or do they keep driving? When I stop here, is it going to be my career on the line?” the mayor said.

The head of the police union disagrees.

“I don’t think they’re standing down. I don’t think they’re not engaging in police work because they’re on tape,” Dean Angelo, president of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 7, says.

Angelo, however, says record gun seizures and heavy court dockets belie the notion that Chicago police may be lying down on the job.

Ninth Ward Ald. Anthony Beale says the mayor’s comments back up what black aldermen have said — that police aren’t doing their job.