Paul Kersey, American Renaissance, August 20, 2018

Real journalism is rare in this era of fake news. Yet a new study from the Washington Post, “Murder with Impunity”, is an example of brilliant investigative reporting, as the 14 writers, two editors and one producer created an incredibly detailed map of homicide.

It’s a step in the right direction for racial realism in covering crime. Though much of the reporting is shrouded in typical leftist platitudes, the reporters can’t ignore the disproportionate role played by blacks in America’s homicide epidemic.

The first section, “ Where Killings Go Unsolved ,” was a look at more than 52,000 homicides in major U.S. cities over the past 10 years.

Homicide arrest rates vary widely when examined by the race of the victim: An arrest was made in 63 percent of the killings of white victims, compared with 48 percent of killings of Latino victims and 46 percent of the killings of black victims. Almost all of the low-arrest zones are home primarily to low-income black residents.

Part two, “ An Unequal Justice ,” provided a seemingly detailed analysis of how 26,000 of those aforementioned homicides were not solved. An astonishing 18,600 victims of those unsolved murders were black.

The Post writers surmised:

Black victims, who accounted for the majority of homicides, were the least likely of any racial group to have their killings result in an arrest, The Post found. While police arrested someone in 63 percent of the killings of white victims, they did so in just 47 percent of those with black victims. The failure to solve black homicides fuels a vicious cycle: It deepens distrust of police among black residents, making them less likely to cooperate in investigations, leading to fewer arrests. As a result, criminals are emboldened and residents’ fears are compounded. In almost every city surveyed, arrests were made in killings of black victims at lower rates than homicides involving white victims. Four cities — Chicago, Baltimore, Detroit and Philadelphia — accounted for more than 7,300 of the black murders with no arrests. But even smaller majority-white cities have amassed large rosters of these cases during the past decade: 422 in Columbus, Ohio; 277 in Buffalo; 183 in Nashville; and 144 in Omaha.

It’s well known that a culture of ‘no snitch’ predominates the black community. Witness intimidation and hostility to police are possible reasons the clearance rate for black homicide victims is lower than that for whites.

Take the situation in St. Louis. As of the 2010 census, it was a town of 319,371 people, 49 percent black and 43 percent white. A whopping three percent of all homicides in the USA in the past decade, as tracked by the Post, were committed in St. Louis.

The Post reports:

From 2007 to 2017, 46 percent of the 1,677 homicides in St. Louis resulted in an arrest. Over that time period, the number of homicides increased while the arrest rate decreased. There were 40 homicides cleared without an arrest. 5 homicides could not be mapped because of missing location data. St. Louis police Maj. Mary Warnecke, commander of investigative services, said: “We have 79 neighborhoods in our city, and 15 of those account for 54 percent of our homicides over the last five-plus years. We are always striving to get witness assistance when working to clear a homicide investigation.” (May 2018)

Yet while the Post takes a deep dive into homicide victim data, it doesn’t really mention the race of those who commit these crimes. For example, the Post failed to consult data readily available courtesy of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department. Going back to 2015, the SLMPD has provided us with a comprehensive breakdown of homicides in the city by the race of both victim and suspect. Though the St. Louis Post-Dispatch has established that the majority of the homicide victims are black, American Renaissance is the first publication to analyze the SLMPD homicide report for 2015-2018 (through July 28, 2018).

Of 685 total homicides, 608 victims were black, 70 were white, and six were Hispanic.

Blacks were victims in 89 percent of the homicides, and whites were victims in 10 percent of the homicides.

Of those homicides, only 419 had suspects, with 399 black suspects (95 percent), 18 white suspects (4 percent), and two Hispanic suspects.

In 2017, of 138 known suspects in the 205 homicides, 137 of 138 suspects were black.

In 2015, of 117 known suspects in 188 homicides, 112 of 117 were black.

The “Murder with Impunity” series is a bridge to the “Color of Crime” analysis American Renaissance has published over the years. Unfortunately, it obfuscates the truth by concealing the reality of who is committing these crimes. It also implicitly suggests police simply aren’t trying to solve crimes with black victims, when the reality is that police have less cooperation from black communities.

Starting with St. Louis, American Renaissance will work to fill in the gaps Jeff Bezos’ publication failed to report. After all, per the Washington Post’s moniker, democracy dies in darkness.