Milwaukee, Baltimore, and St. Louis have all seen dramatic increases in murders despite three distinctively different gun-law regimes.

What do they have in common? They’ve all been at the center of the radical critique mounted by #BlackLivesMatter. In St. Louis, arrests are down and murder is up. In Baltimore, arrests are down and murder is up. In Milwaukee, still dealing with the death of Dontre Hamilton, Chief Flynn has spoken openly of how — time after time — aggressive policing met with media and activist pushback, until the department retreated into initiatives focused on “building empathy.” In Heather Mac Donald’s words, law-enforcement officials are “disengaging from discretionary enforcement activity,” and the result has been more violent crime.

Radical critics of aggressive policing rarely speak honestly about the criminal underclass in America’s major cities. They are not the oppressed; they are the oppressors. They are not fighting historic racism and injustice; they’re trying to make money, dominate “turf,” and terrify people into submission. The criminal underclass welcomes passive policing not as a chance to live free but rather as an opportunity to exploit.