The myth of the widely debunked “Ferguson effect” on policing is hard to kill. FBI Director James Comey once again raised the specter of the impact of protests against police brutality on police effectiveness yesterday, when he made comments suggesting that a spike in violent crime in some cities may be correlated to officers’ fear of doing their jobs because of community hostility and the growing popularity of cop watching.

“What I’m talking about is sort of the viral video effect,” Comey told reporters. “Changes in the way police may be acting and in the way communities may be acting in terms of how much information they share with police could well be at the heart of this or could well be an important factor in this.”

Comey, who in the past has spoken sensationally about a “chill wind blowing through law enforcement,” and has been widely criticized for making his allegations with zero data to back them up, was once again vague with his fearmongering. Crime experts say his alarm doesn’t square with the numbers.

Comey said yesterday that he “resists” calling the phenomenon the Ferguson effect, though his message echoed his earlier stance. “The reason I resist Ferguson effect is Ferguson, at least to my recollection, wasn’t about videos.” “I think it is the potential effect of marginal pullbacks by lots and lots of police officers that is changing some cities. I continue to hear that privately,” he said. “I’ve heard it in lots of conversations privately with police leaders.”

“I don’t know for sure,” he said. “Something has happened.”

But to those who have been closely watching — and, yes, videotaping — police, that’s “nonsense.”

“If their job is hunting people, hunting black men, then yes, we made it harder for them to do their job. If their job is to be public servants, then no,” said Jacob Crawford, who moved to Ferguson following the killing of Michael Brown and has handed out hundreds of cameras to residents there and in other cities, training them on their right to document the police.

“Police now for the first time are having to consider the consequences of being brutal, being unethical, and doing things that for the longest time they could do and not be accountable for,” he added. “But that doesn’t make crime happen.” In Ferguson, he said, scrutiny of police has meant officers are now coming into a community when called for help, and that “they know better than jump out of cars and chase kids.”

Michael Wood Jr., a former Baltimore police officer-turned-advocate for police reform, also questioned Comey’s assumption that less aggressive policing leads to more crime. “Comey’s position is that if the armed enforcement wing of the government takes its boot off the neck of the public, just a little, then we will just become killers,” he wrote in an email to The Intercept, citing the example of cities like New York where less aggressive policing has actually led to a decline in crime — a decline that remains unchanged despite significant protests against police violence in recent years.

The problem with the FBI director’s statements is that there is “a lack of science,” he charged. “Comey is making a claim of which there is no evidence to support, he is pushing an ideology.” After Ferguson, the FBI promised to compile data on “officer involved” incidents, but that hasn’t happened yet and lack of consistent data across police departments remains one of the largest obstacles to serious reform.