ATL Standard

As crime surges across the country, including Georgia and Atlanta, black Americans are disproportionately the victims, New York Post columnist Michael Goodwin wrote.

"The nation’s large cities are so swamped by horrific crime and violence that police, criminologists and a few honest elected Democrats are finally conceding the obvious: The progressive movement, including Black Lives Matter, that ostensibly aimed to protect minority racial groups by defunding the police and coddling criminals backfired big time," Goodwin wrote.

In the first quarter of 2022 in Atlanta, homicides were nearly 50% higher over the same period last year, Fox 5 Atlanta reported.

In the first quarter of 2021, crime data showed that black men in Atlanta were victims of violent crime at an alarmingly high rate, 11Alive reported. In total, 291 of the 311 shootings victims from January to April were black, with 252 of all those shootings being black men. Five of the victims were Asian women and seven were white, the station said.

Nationally during 2020, a disproportionate amount of black people were murdered compared to white people, Fox News reported. Experts say this is largely due to movements to defund the police – which actually aimed to protect minority racial groups. In 2020, the FBI reported 9,941 murders of black Americans, the network reported. In 2019, that number shot up to 7,484 – a near 33% increase in just one year.

Between 2010 and 2019, black murders shot up by 43%. In April, Manhattan Institute's Heather Mac Donald told Fox News Digital that the Black Lives Matter and defund the police movements contributed to 2020's crime spike and had nothing to do with the coronavirus and lockdowns. The spike "began months after lockdowns beginning only after riots," noting the "spike was not at all related to COVID," according to Fox News.

In his recent New York Post opinion piece, Goodwin acknowledges that an increase in crime is most pronounced for nonwhite groups, and the same is true when we see a decline in crime. He also points out that "the people the progressives claimed to be helping actually were harmed by the anti-police, pro-criminal policies."

Georgia's violent crime rose at a rate of 17.4% from 2019 to 2020, The Center Square reported. The current rate stands at 400 incidents per 100,000 people, which is higher than in most other states, the story said. The majority of violent crimes reported in the state during that year – 73.4% – were cases of aggravated assault. However, the increase in violent crime rates in the southern state was led by a surge in homicide cases. In 2020, 943 murders were reported in Georgia, representing a 44.2% increase from 654 murders in 2019.

FBI data shows there were 7,043 white people murdered in 2020. When compared to white people, 2,898 more black people were killed that year.

In light of midterm elections coming up, a Vox article predicts local and statewide races are where crime will be a defining factor for many Democrat candidates, since that's where policies are enacted and Democrats are typically known to be looser on crime. The article also points out that in 2021, violent crime, including assaults and murders, was up from years past. In 27 U.S. cities, homicides rose 44% from 2019, and 5% from 2020.