Liberals in the mainstream media are scratching their heads trying to explain 2016’s explosion of violent crime, conveniently ignoring the giant police-hating elephant in the room.

“U.S. Cities See Unexplained Rise in Violent Crimes This Year” reads an Associated Press headline published Sunday. But the staggering rise in violent crime — over 1,200 people in Chicago alone have been shot so far this year — is perfectly explicable.

Crime is up because policing is down.

Crime is up because policing is down. And policing is down in part because the Obama administration, mainstream media, and so-called civil rights activists have created an atmosphere for law enforcement so hateful and toxic that many police officers apparently now fear doing their jobs properly.

“It has been labeled the Ferguson effect,” said Bill Johnson, executive director of the National Association of Police Organizations. “I think it’s real … There’s a sense of second thoughts. Some are thinking, ‘Do I really want to do this if I don’t have to?'”

FBI Director James Comey suggested in May that the “viral video effect could well be at the heart” of the year’s stunning increase in violent crime. “There’s a perception that police are less likely to do the marginal additional policing that suppresses crime,” he said.

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In 2014, Michael Brown was shot whilst assaulting a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. Before the facts of the case were fully revealed the mainstream media created an entire narrative of “racist white cop murders innocent black teen,” based solely on one witness statement which was later proven entirely false.

Facts, however, are evidently of little consequence to the left, and before any details regarding the Michael Brown incident were fully known, Obama announced he would send representatives to attend Brown’s funeral, a civil rights investigation into the Ferguson police department was launched, and a fully-fledged protest movement — “Black Lives Matter” — was born.

It spawned a familiar pattern. African-American dies at hands of policeman, national uproar ensues, police accused of racism, policeman’s career and reputation sacrificed on the altar before the full details of the incident are known and litigated.

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After Freddie Gray died in police custody in Baltimore, the now-predictable public outcry ensued, and the six police officers involved were then subjected to what was effectively a show trial by Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby. Three of those officers, cleared of any criminal wrongdoing, have since filed defamation lawsuits against Mosby.

“Cops are backing off from proactive policing under the relentless, vicious assault — rhetorical assault — on them, that they are racist,” said Heather Mac Donald, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute. “An assault that comes from the president on down, as well as the hostility that they’re encountering on the streets when they try to make an arrest or simply conduct a street investigation,” she added.

Mac Donald’s comments are supported by those of active duty officers. “There’s a concern among the rank and file about not wanting to be the next YouTube video that goes viral,” Chicago’s interim police superintendent, John Escalante, said in May.

Chicago’s current police superintendent, Eddie Johnson, agrees. “Quite frankly, trust has broken down between the community and police,” he said.