‘Ferguson Effect’ Documented in Baltimore

A protester walks through tear gas as police enforce a mandatory, city-wide curfew on April 28, 2015 in Baltimore, Maryland. Andrew Burton/Getty Images

Writing in The Wall Street Journal in May 2015, Heather Mac Donald noted an alarming upward spike in gun violence, ending “a 20-year pattern of growing public safety.”

Mac Donald traced the increase in violence to “suggestions that the police are the biggest threat facing young black males today.”